Patent ID: 8438191

Claim:
A system, comprising: at least one processor; at least one non-transitory computer readable medium communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the at least one non-transitory computer readable medium having stored therein computer-executable instructions, comprising: an interface component configured to receive a data object from an industrial automation device, wherein the data object stores data that relates to at least one of collected data from an industrial automation environment or configuration data for the industrial automation device; a validation component configured to validate metadata against a template and at least one discoverable service, wherein the metadata is additional data that describes the data stored in the data object in manner that is informative with respect to industrial automation according to a common definition utilized in the industrial automation environment; and an append component configured to: in response to the metadata being validated, append metadata to the data object; and in response to the metadata not being validated, prevent the metadata from being appended to the data object.