Patent ID: 7742833

Claim:
An industrial automation system, comprising one or more processors executing the following components: a plurality of embedded historians that are distributed as part of a networked industrial automation system to collect data associated with the industrial automation system, wherein each of the embedded historians has a direct interface to at least one controller, and wherein the embedded historians are configured to self-identify upon the occurrence of a predetermined event; a locator component that locates one or more embedded historians by employing a trail of metadata based at least on an identified data type of historian data to be collected; an organizational hierarchy data model with nodes that represent units associated with the industrial automation system; an artificial intelligence component that facilitates identification of data collected by the embedded historians; a Human Machine Interface (HMI) to graphically display a view of the industrial automation system; and a graphical user interface (GUI) that forms an application view of a historian data collection system, wherein the embedded historians are distributed as part of industrial units of an industrial plant and collect data across various levels of the industrial plant, and wherein historian functionality is shifted upwards or downwards between the levels based upon at least one of: overloading at one or more levels, or a network message from another level.