Historian

The Historian add-on provides automatic time-series storage for all Sparkplug B metrics in your space. Once enabled, every metric value change is recorded and available for trend analysis, reporting, and data export.

Enabling the Historian

  1. Navigate to Add-ons in your account menu
  2. Click Subscribe on the Historian card
  3. The historian activates immediately on all your spaces

Pricing: $449/month. Includes up to 100 GB of storage. During trial sessions, the historian is available at no charge for the duration of the 8-hour window.

Screenshot: Add-ons page showing the Historian card with Subscribe button

How It Works

When the historian is active:

  1. Every Sparkplug B data message (DDATA, NDATA) is written to a TimescaleDB hypertable
  2. Values are stored with their full timestamp, metric path, and typed value (float, integer, or boolean)
  3. Older data is automatically compressed using TimescaleDB's native columnar compression
  4. Data is available for querying via trend charts or the API

No configuration is required — all metrics are recorded automatically.

Trend Charts

View historical data as interactive line charts:

  1. Open a space and navigate to the Trends view
  2. Select one or more metrics to plot
  3. Choose a time range (last hour, last 24 hours, last 7 days, custom range)
  4. The chart renders with time-bucketed data points for the selected period

Screenshot: Trend chart showing multiple metrics plotted over a 24-hour time range

Chart Features

  • Zoom — click and drag on the chart to zoom into a time range
  • Pan — shift-click and drag to pan across time
  • Multiple metrics — overlay several metrics on the same chart for comparison
  • Saved views — save chart configurations to quickly load recurring analyses

Screenshot: Saved chart views dropdown with saved configurations

Storage & Compression

The historian uses TimescaleDB with automatic compression:

  • Raw data is stored in time-series hypertables, optimized for fast writes and time-range queries
  • Compression kicks in automatically for older data, reducing storage by up to 90%+
  • Storage monitoring — check your current usage on the space dashboard to see total storage, compressed vs. uncompressed data, and compression ratio

Screenshot: Storage usage panel showing compression ratio and disk usage

Storage Metrics Explained

MetricMeaning
Data After CompressionActual disk usage (your current storage footprint)
Data Before CompressionWhat the data would take without compression
Compression RatioHow much space compression saves

Retention Policies

Retention policies control how long historical data is kept:

  • Trial accounts — 30-day automatic retention. Data older than 30 days is permanently deleted.
  • Production accounts with Historian — configurable retention via the MANTLE_RETENTION_DAYS setting. Contact support to adjust.

When data passes the retention threshold, it is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.

Data Export

Historical data can be accessed programmatically via the AnywhereSCADA API using API Keys. This enables integration with external analytics platforms, custom dashboards, or data lakes.

Next Steps