Can Internal Historian Data be excluded from Gateway Backup (gwbk)?

Ignition
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1

I previously posted this question about six months ago here, but did not receive any response.

Is there a way of excluding the internal historian data from gateway backups? Does anyone have a work around? I thought maybe project backups might work but according to the documentation:

They do not include Gateway resources, like database connections, Tag Providers, and Tags.

My goal is that the gateway will auto backup everything needed periodically to a network location and not take up too much space.

2

@shane.m.alexander, can you share some details on what type of Ignition installation it is? Edge/Full, Version?

3

Full version: 8.1.4, using Vision, OPC-UA, and Reporting

4

It looks like Ignition Edge places the internal historian data files under <Ignition install location>/data/edge_data and these are not collected by a gateway backup. However, when using the Internal Historian feature against the standard Ignition Full edition, it seems that it places that local SQLite DB in the path you mentioned in your link above, under data/modules/modules/com.inductiveautomation.taghistorian/InternalHistory.idb. The data/modules path is definitely included in the gateway backup, resulting in your internal history cache coming along for the ride. I’ll open a ticket to look into this…

5

What modules do you have installed/licensed on the gateway?

6

We are using Vision, OPC, and Tag Historian for this particular issue.

Our license includes:

  • Ignition Platform
  • Includes IA OPC Drivers
  • Symbol Factory
  • Vision Client
  • Vision Module Limited
  • EAM (Free)
  • Tag Historian
  • Alarm Notification Module
  • Reporting Limited Report
  • Reporting Module Limited
  • MQTT Transmission
7

Okay, I’ve logged a ticket for this particular issue… There is an alternative strategy that you could use for this, though with this technique not using the official “internal historian”, it won’t be a candidate for sync’ing the history data over the gateway network (one of the original uses for the internal historian is for Ignition Edge where some local history capture can occur but using EAM Data Sync, it can sync the data to an upstream Gateway Tag Historian). Here are some steps you can consider (though the particulars will likely vary somewhat for your installation):

  1. Create a new SQLite Database Connection–the path specified (if not explicit) will be relative to your Ignition installation, so you could choose something like data/internalhistory.db.
  2. Observe the new History datasource that should show under Config->Tags->History.
  3. Migrating tags over to using this history datasource instead of the official “Internal Historian” will allow you to place that internal history database file in a path of your choosing (in step 1).

Granted, the steps above don’t accommodate moving over any of the accumulated history you have already. Additionally, with this technique using a different database structure than the internal history DB, it isn’t as simple as just copying the current HistoricalData.idb into place as your new database.

From the looks of it, this should be a relatively easy fix, I’ll try to keep this forum post updated with any progress on our ticket for this.

Hope this helps,

Kevin C.

1 Like
8

Thanks for that workaround, Kevin. I will keep an eye out for the fix to the official internal database also.

9

The nightly now includes an update to where the local data is stored for both Internal History and Edge Historian. You’ll notice that files for local alarm journal, audit log, and tag history are migrated to a data/local directory tree that is excluded from the gateway backup.

1 Like
10

Thanks Kevin! I’ll test it a bit and let you know if I see any problems.