Patent ID: 7853568

Claim:
A method of archiving a plurality of data values from a real-time database in a historian system, wherein the historian system includes a short-term repository and a long-term archive, comprising: obtaining one of the plurality of data values from the real-time database, wherein the real-time database monitors a current operational state of an industrial system, wherein the plurality of data values correspond to information reflecting an operational state of one or more monitored devices of the industrial system, and wherein the obtained data value is stored in a tag that includes a timestamp and a tag ID identifying a monitored parameter in the real-time database; evaluating the tag to determine whether to store the tag in the historian system; upon determining to store the tag in the historian system, storing the tag in the short-term repository; evaluating a set of tags in the short-term repository to determine whether to store any of the set of tags in the long-term archive; and upon determining to store one or more of the set of tags in the long-term archive, copying the tag from the short-term repository to the long-term archive and removing the tag from the short-term repository; monitoring a rate at which data values are obtained by the historian system and monitoring a number of tags of a given type in the short-term repository; upon determining that one of (i) the rate at which data values are obtained by the historian system exceeds a rate at which the historian system is able to process the data values and (ii) the number of tags of the given type in the short term repository exceeds an allocated number of tags of the given type, writing the data values to an overflow file.