Historian 2023 System Requirements

Software Requirements

Operating System

Historian requires one of the following operating systems, with latest service packs or revisions:
  • Microsoft® Windows® Server 2022 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft® Windows® Server 2019 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft® Windows® Server 2016 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft® Windows® 11 (64-bit)
  • Microsoft® Windows® 10 (64-bit), Professional ,or Enterprise Edition
  • Microsoft® Windows® 10 IoT Enterprise with LTSC enabled
Note: The Historian server runs on a 64-bit Windows operating system only. Historian 7.2 32-bit components such as Collectors, Excel Add-in 32-bit, Interactive SQL 32-bit, APIs, and Non-Web Administrator work as 32-bit application on 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. If you use Historian 6.0 or later on Windows Server 2008 R2, you must go for a Full Installation and not Core Installation of Windows.
Network Interface Software
  • The TCP/IP network protocol is required

Microsoft®.NET Core or .NET Framework

Historian requires the following .NET frameworks:To install the framework, you must configure your proxy server for internet access.
  • Microsoft®.NET Core Framework 3.1: This is required if you want to use the new Client Access API.
  • Microsoft®.NET Framework 4.8: This is required on the machine on which you will install the Excel Add-in for Operations Hub. In addition, this is required for Historian collectors.
  • Microsoft®.NET Framework 4.5.1: This is required for all the other Historian components. You can install it manually, or you will be prompted to download and install it while installing Historian.
Note: If your machine is Firewall/proxy-enabled, Microsoft .NET Framework may not be installed automatically. In that case, before installing Historian, you must install Microsoft .NET Framework manually (if it is not available).

Microsoft® SQL Server®

Historian requires one of the following 32-bit or 64-bit Microsoft® SQL Server® SQL server systems to configure archiving for alarms and events or to use Historian as a linked server:
  • Microsoft® SQL Server® 2019
  • Microsoft® SQL Server® 2017
Note: The collation for your alarms and events database must match the collation of your SQL Server. This happens automatically by default unless the alarms and events database is moved to another SQL server.

Browser

You can access the Web Admin console and Trend Client using the following browsers:
  • Firefox version 46 or later
  • Google Chrome version 39 or later

To access Configuration Hub, use Google Chrome only.

Screen Resolution

You can access Configuration Hub, the Web Admin console, and Trend Client using the following screen resolutions:
  • 1280 x 1024
  • 1366 x 768

Microsoft Excel

The Excel Addin for Historian or the Excel Addin for Operations Hub requires any of the following versions of Excel:
  • Microsoft® Excel® 2021 (32 & 64 bit)
  • Microsoft® Excel® 2019 (32 & 64 bit)
  • Microsoft® Excel® 2016 (32 & 64 bit)
  • Microsoft® Excel® 2013 (32 & 64 bit)

Web Server

The web server requires the following applications:
  • Microsoft®.NET Framework 4.5.2
  • Historian Client Tools 7.0 or later
  • OLE DB, User API, and Historian Client Access Assembly

Hardware Requirements

Standard 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 1,000,000 tags 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 tags 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 tags
RAM (GB) 8/16 (recommended for a single node setup) 16 or 32 16 or 32 16 or 32 32 or 64
Disk size (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 (GHz) 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.6 2.6
CPU clock speed (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 (GHz) 2.5 2.7
RAM (GB) 64 256
The following table provides sample hardware specifications for collectors.
Hardware Component Recommendation
RAM (GB) 8
Disk size (GB) 80
Historian collectors 32-bit or 64-bit
Note: GE Data Collector for Wonderware support only 64-bit
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 1. Microsoft Cluster Service
Hardware Component Requirement
CPU speed, processor type, and RAM 2.6 GHz clock-speed Intel Core i3 or i5 or i7 CPU or Xeon or equivalent AMD Opteron CPU with minimum 8 GB RAM.
Disk size 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 2. Data Mirroring and Redundancy Service
Hardware Component Requirement
Operating System 64-bit Windows operating system
RAM (GB) 8 (minimum)
Note: If using a single-node setup, 32 GB are recommended.
Processor type 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.

Compatibility with Other Products

Several GE products work with Historian. The following is a general set of required versions to work with Historian.

Important: If you want to enable the Strict Authentication feature in Historian 7.2, be aware that you will need to apply the latest SIMs that support this feature for all Proficy clients that connect to the Archiver, including the ones listed in this table. In addition, there may be SIMS to allow pre-5.0 collectors and client applications such as Excel Add-In to connect. Refer to the SIM download page for updates for Historian and other Proficy products.
Product Supported Version
CIMPLICITY 11.1, 2022
iFIX 6.5, 2022, 2023 pre-release
Plant Applications 8.2, 2022, 2023 pre-release
Workflow 2.6, 2.6 SP1
Operations Hub 2.1, 2022, 2023 pre-release
Configuration Hub 2023
Proficy Authentication 2023
DreamReport 2020 for Proficy

* For customers using iFIX, there was a change in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry values for WebSpace and it will no longer work with the existing SIM. Ensure that you get the latest iFIX SIMs. The following article provides additional instructions: https://ge-ip.force.com/communities/en_US/Article/iFIX-Webspace-Strict-Historian-Authentication

** For Plant Apps customers using the ‘Historian Type = ‘GE Proficy – Historian 3.0’ to connect to Historian 7.2, both the Enabled and Disabled options for Enforce Strict Client Authentication selection are supported.

** For Plant Apps customers using the ‘Historian Type = ‘GE Proficy – Historian’ to connect to Proficy Historian 7.2, only the Disabled option for Enforce Strict Client Authentication selection is supported.

In Historian 5.0, the Historian HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry key values were changed. The programs accessing the server collection through the SDK are unaffected. Any program or script that directly accesses the registry keys or any Terminal Server login scripts that try to configure a list of servers by importing registry keys directly will no longer work. Such programs need to access the server collection via SDK calls, not directly.

Historian REST APIs are required to integrate between Historian and Operations Hub. Historian REST APIs are installed automatically when you install Historian Web-based Clients.

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