Patent ID: 7840285

Claim:
A networked computer including a computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for a sequence of events management facility for a process control network environment including control modules, the sequence of events management facility comprising: an event data interface for receiving timestamped event data originating from a digital field control process input and provided to the sequence of events management facility via a network communications link; a sequence of events server comprising: a process database for storing an archival copy of the received timestamped event data, an event buffer, interposed between the event data interface and the process database, for temporarily storing the event data received from the event data interface prior to storing the event data in the process database, and an event data client application interface providing access by sequence of events client applications to the timestamped event data received by the sequence of events management facility, thereby providing user access to sequence of event data based upon timestamped event data originating from a process control system; and an event sorting function that facilitates passing received timestamped event data in chronological order to the event buffer.