About Storing Future Data

You can store future data in Historian. This future data is the predicted data, which has a future timestamp. You can use this data to perform a predictive or forecast analysis, and revise the forecasting algorithms as needed.

The data is stored in the Historian Archiver. You can use it to analyse both the historical data and future data (for example, using trend charts), and take necessary actions. This allows you to refine the way the data to be stored in Historian is received and processed.

By default, Historian stores up to 1200 seconds of future data. However, if you enable storage of future data, you can store data up to the following timestamp: 03:14:07 on Tuesday, 19 January, 2038.
Note: You can store future data beyond the license expiry date of Historian. For example, even if the license expires by May 31, 2022, you can store future data that is predicted till 19 January, 2038. However, after the license expires, you cannot use this feature.

You can store future data related to all the data types used in Historian. You can store future data for all the tags associated with a data store.

The following collectors support future data (that is, collect the future timestamp of the data):
  • The OPC DA collector
  • The OPCUA DA collector
  • The OPCHDA collector

To use this feature, you must enable the storage of future data. You can do this using sample programs or Command Line.

You can then retrieve and/or extract this data using any of the available options such as Historian Administrator, Rest APIs, Excel Add-In, and the Historian Interactive SQL application (ihsql.exe).

The following conditions apply when you store future data:
  • You can enable the future data storage only for a data store.
  • You can collect future data only using the OPC Data Access, OPCUA Data Access, and OPC HDA collectors. You cannot collect future data using Calculation collectors such as Server-to-Server, Server-to-Distributor, and Calculation.
  • When you select the Last 10 Values option for a tag, the results include the last ten values till the current date and time; the results do not include future data. If you want to view future data, you can filter the data based on the start and end dates.
  • Future data is stored till 19 January, 2038.
    Note: You can store future data beyond the license expiry date of Historian. For example, even if the license expires by May 31, 2022, you can store future data that is predicted till 19 January, 2038. However, after the license expires, you cannot use this feature.
Best practices:
  • For a tag for which you want to store future data, do not store past data.
  • As this feature can lead to out-of-order data, use this feature carefully to avoid load on the server. For example, store future data in the chronological order of time.
Known Issues:
  • Data recalculation does not work for future data.

Suppose you have enabled the storage of future data for a data store named FDataStore.

Suppose the current time is 9.00 am, April 13, 2020. And, future data is stored from 11.00 am onwards, and a size-based archive is created to store the data.

Data can be stored in the archive file only from 11.00 am onwards.

Scenario 1: The timestamp of the data is in the past. For example: 11.00 am, April 12, 2020. A new archive file will be created to store this data. Therefore, to reduce load on the server, we strongly recommend that you store future data in the chronological order of time.

Scenario 2: The timestamp of the data is beyond the outside-active-hours of the archive file. For example: 11.00 am, December 12, 2020. Suppose the current archive file is active only for today. Data will not be stored in the archive file because the timestamp of the data falls beyond the outside-active-hours value of the archive file. To avoid this issue, a new archive file must be created in such scenarios. To do so, you must enable offline archive creation.

Scenario 3: The timestamp of the data is much further in the future. For example: 11.00 am, April 12, 2025. The current archive file may be used to store the data for this timestamp as well. This results in an optimum usage of the archive file instead of creating multiple archive files.