OLE DB Provider Overview
About This Manual
This manual is intended for those who analyze Historian™ data and prepare reports with data retrieved from the Historian product archive.
This manual provides descriptions of all the tables and columns in the Historian OLE DB Provider and specific operating procedures for performing common tasks.
OLEDB is the primary tool to access and move data within applications, and provides support for non-Excel based reporting such as Seagate® Crystal Reports™. The Historian OLE DB Provider is a data access mechanism that allows Historian data to be directly queried using Structured Query Language (SQL) statements.
This manual assumes that you are familiar with the Historian product, standard SQL-92 conventions, and relational database concepts, such as table, column, and row structures.
About the OLE DB Provider
The Historian OLE DB Provider is a data access mechanism that allows you to query Historian product data using Structured Query Language (SQL) statements or other client reporting tools.
The Historian OLE DB Provider gives regulated industries the ability to create reports using applications such as Seagate® Crystal Reports™. It also allows current Historian product users to integrate with other databases such as SQL Server, and other third party OLE DB-compliant applications.
The OLE DB Provider has read-only access. You cannot insert, update, or delete data in archives using the OLE DB Provider.
What is OLE DB?
OLE DB is a collection of standard COM-based interfaces defined by Microsoft that abstract standard SQL commands into native API access for any data source. OLE DB adds tremendous value to the Historian product by providing simple access to data from within the SQL environment, without the need for complex scripting.
For more detailed information on the Microsoft® OLE DB 2.0 Provider, refer to Microsoft's web site:
Historian OLE DB Provider Components
When you install the Historian OLE DB Provider, a new folder is created in your Historian product directory. This folder contains the Historian Interactive SQL tool (ihSQL.exe) and a Samples folder containing sample reports. Your Historian directory should appear in the Historian folder if you install the Historian OLE DB Provider on a Historian Server computer.
If you install the Historian OLE DB Provider on a client computer, your Historian directory will not contain most of these folders. These folders may also appear differently, depending upon the number of collectors or archivers that you installed.
The Samples folder includes samples for Crystal Reports, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visual Basic, iFIX, and Oracle®.
In addition, to support the OLE DB Provider on 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems, a dynamic-link library file (ihOLEDB.dll) is installed in your WINDOWS\SysWOW64 and also in WINDOWS\System32 folder respectively.
Supported Operating Systems
The Historian OLE DB Provider is now 64-bit and it supports the same operating systems as the Historian product for client access. These operating systems include the following:
- Microsoft Windows XP SP2/SP3 64-bit®
- Microsoft Windows 2003 Server 32-bit including R2®
- Microsoft Windows Vista
- Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 64-bit
Supported Client Reporting Tools
The following products have been tested with the Historian OLE DB Provider:
- Seagate Crystal Reports v8.0, and above (v11.0 or above required for use with Historian Alarms and Events®)
- VisiconX with iFIX™ v4.0 and later.
- Microsoft Excel 2003® and later.
- Visual Basic v6.0®, Service Pack 5
- Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) v6.0
- Microsoft SQL Server® v7, Service Pack 3
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008, or SQL Server Express 2008
- Oracle 8.x and above ®
Other OLE DB clients are likely to work with the Historian OLE DB Provider, but have not been tested.