OSI PI Collector Overview

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The Historian OSI PI Collector gathers data samples from an OSI PI data server and stores the corresponding data entries in the Historian Server or Predix Cloud. Data can be gathered directly from the OSI PI Data Archive v3.2 or greater via the OSI PI AOSI PI v 1.3.4 or greater. This collector supports a distributed model, where the PI Data Server, the Collector, and Proficy Historian are installed on different machines.

The OSI PI Collector must be installed on the same computer as the OSI PI Data Archive. The OSI PI collector uses unsolicited collection, whereby changes to the OSI PI archives are detected, and are forwarded to the Historian server. The collector is intended to duplicate raw samples from the OSI PI Data Archive in an Historian data archive. You can specifically request the collector to transfer values from the OSI PI snapshot cache (as seen in the previous version of OSI PI Collectors), however, it is recommended to transfer the values directly from the PI archives to the Historian archives.

One OSI PI collector can collect data from a single OSI PI data archiver. To collect from multiple OSI PI data archives to an Historian archive, you must configure multiple OSI PI collectors.
Note: By default, the OSI PI collector reads data directly from the PI archive which allows better performance and connectivity. If you are using the previous versions (pre-6.0) of the PI Collector, you would see that the collector reads values from the snapshot database. For more information on how to upgrade and still retain the old behavior refer to Upgrading and Using the PI Snapshot Collection.