Patent ID: 7738973

Claim:
An industrial automation system, comprising: one or more processors; at least one memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors, the memory having stored therein computer-executable instructions configured to implement the industrial automation system, including: a plurality of historian components residing at multiple hierarchical levels of an organization that collect information across the multiple hierarchical levels, wherein information collection functionality performed by a first historian component of the plurality of historian components at a first hierarchical level is shifted to a second historian component of the plurality of historian components on a disparate hierarchical level if information collection resources at the first hierarchical level are determined to be overloaded, wherein at least two of the hierarchical levels comprise a control level and a second level, the second level being a higher level of the organizational hierarchy than the control level; a user interface comprising at least one display object to display data associated with the plurality of historian components; and a common data model that manages the information across the multiple hierarchical levels of the organization, wherein the common data model enables the plurality of historian components to expose their respective functionality to other components in the system.