Hardware Requirements

Table 1. Historian Server
Hardware Component Standard Historian Enterprise Historian, Data Mirroring
RAM 8 GB 16 GB or 32 GB (recommended)
Disk size 80 GB free hard-drive space 250 GB (minimum)
Processor type Intel Core i3 or i5 or i7 CPU or an equivalent AMD Phenom CPU Intel Core-i5, i7 family, or equivalent
CPU Dual/Quad cores
CPU speed 2.4 GHz 2.8 GHz
Recommended CPU clock 2.4 GHz 2.8 GHz
Storage type SAS SSD with RAID Level 0 configured
Operating system
  • Microsoft® Windows® Server 2019 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft® Windows® Server 2016 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft® Windows® Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft® Windows® 10 IoT (32-bit or 64-bit)
  • Microsoft® Windows® 10 (32-bit or 64-bit)
  • Microsoft® Windows® 8.1 Professional (32-bit or 64-bit)
Tags Up to 50,000
Years of data online 1 year
Other requirements
  • A DVD-ROM drive.
  • 100 Mbps TCP/IP-compatible network interface adapter for network communication and certain I/O drivers.
The size of a Historian server is determined by:
  • The number of tags from which data is collected. The number of tags is an indicator of the number of concurrent users likely to access the system. The primary factor is server memory requirements; CPU load is a secondary factor. If the number of concurrent users is significantly different from the suggested guidelines, adjust server memory size accordingly.
  • The rate of alarms and events collection.
  • The frequency of data collection.
  • The amount of data you want to keep online.
The following table provides the recommended hardware components for a Historian server with the Standard license based on the number of tags that you want to use. These recommendations may vary based on years of data online, update rate, data compression setting, and other tag configuration parameters.
Hardware Component Less Than 10,000 Tags 10,000 to 50,000 Tags 100,000 to One Million Tags One Million to Two Million Tags Two Million to Five Million Tags
RAM (in GB) 8 GB/16 GB (recommended for a single node setup) 16 or 32 16 or 32 16 or 32 32 or 64
Disk Size (in GB) 100 or 250 250 250 500 500
Processor Type Intel Core-i5, i7 family, or equivalent Intel Core-i5, i7 family, or equivalent Intel Xeon (56xx, E5 family or AMD Opteron 42xx/62xx family)
CPU Dual/Quad core Dual/Quad core Dual/Quad core 2-socket 2-socket or 4-socket
CPU Speed (in GHz) 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.6 2.6
CPU clock speed (in GHz) 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.6 2.6
Storage Type SAS SSD with RAID level 0 configured SAS SSD with RAID level 0 configured Direct-attached or shared storage with SAS enterprise class drives. Hardware RAID controller with cache memory. SAN recommended over NAS High speed shared storage with SAS or SSD drive types. Hardware RAID controller with cache memory. SAN recommended over NAS.
Years of data online 1 1 1 1 1
Note:
  • The Historian server runs only on 64-bit versions of Windows.
  • When possible, for performance reasons, consider using computers with multiple disk drives so that archives and buffers can be given their own drive. Or, multiple data stores can each have their own drive.
  • Sustained event rate is 60-100 million samples per minute.
  • Historian supports Intel Core i3, i5, i7 Duo based processors as long as they are compatible with the operating system.
  • Historian does not support Titanium processors.
System performance may vary depending on the hardware specifications, operating system, and tuning parameters. The following table provides sample hardware specifications for medium-sized and large-sized servers.
Hardware Component For a Medium-Sized Server For a Large-Sized Server
Processor type Intel Xeon 5540 Intel Xeon E5-2670 or E5-4650
CPU Dual socket Dual socket or quad-socket
CPU speed (in GHz) 2.5 2.7
RAM (in GB) 64 256
Table 2. Collectors
Hardware Component Recommendation
RAM 8 GB
Disk size 80 GB
Historian collectors 32-bit or 64-bit
Note: GE Data Collector for Wonderware support 64-bit only
Note:
  • Historian Collectors work as 32-bit applications on a 64-bit Windows operating systems using WoW64 mode (Windows-on-Windows 64-bit). However, you can read and write data from a 64-bit Historian Server.
  • RAM and Disk Size required may vary based on the collectors available on the system.
  • Recommended number of tags per collector is 20 to 30K.
  • For iFIX systems, count each Node.Tag.Field (NTF) as a separate tag when you determine the size of the system. For example, FIX.FIC101.F_CV and FIX.FIC101.B_CUALM (current alarm) both count as tags, even though they are derived from the same iFIX tag.

Microsoft Windows Server

Many desktop-class computers are not certified to run Windows. Check the Microsoft website and your computer hardware vendor website for possible conflicts between your hardware and Windows server. These specifications are sufficient to meet the needs of a small pilot application. However, production system requirements may be significantly different depending on many application-specific factors. Please contact your product manager to review the requirements of your application.

Table 3. Microsoft Cluster Service
Hardware Component Requirement
CPU speed, processor type, and RAM A 2.6 GHz clock-speed Intel Core i3 or i5 or i7 or Xeon or equivalent AMD Opteron CPU with minimum 8 GB RAM.
Disk size A 80 GB free hard-drive space and a 40 GB shared SCSI hard-drive (RAID preferred).
Other requirements Two 100Mbit TCP/IP-compatible network interface adapters for network communication and certain I/O drivers (One for public network, another for private network).
Note: The configuration of each server added to the cluster must be identical to the other servers in the cluster.
Table 4. Data Mirroring and Redundancy Service
Hardware Component Requirement
Operating system A 64-bit Windows operation system.
RAM Minimum 8 GB RAM.
Note: If you are using single node setup, it is recommended to use 32 GB RAM.
Processor type A dual core processor.

Ensure that you are using the same hardware requirement for the mirror node as well.

Network Speed

For a large Configuration Hub setup, it is recommended that the network speed is 1 GBPS.

Note:
  • If you are using a single node setup, then it is recommended to use 32 GB RAM.
  • Ensure that you are using the same hardware requirement for the mirror node as well.
  • You must have a minimum of 10 GB free space available for the data archiver to start.
  • Many desktop-class computers are not certified to run Windows server. Check the Microsoft website and your computer hardware vendor website for possible conflicts between your hardware and Windows server. These specifications are sufficient to meet the needs of a small pilot application. However, production system requirements may be significantly different depending on many application-specific factors. Please contact your product manager to review the requirements of your application.