Understand archives in Data Archive

PI archives are used to store PI data. Data Archive 2015 introduces special archives called "future archives" for PI points that have the "future" attribute set: these points are typically used to store forecast data. Traditional archives used to store time-series data are referred to as "historical archives".

When you run the setup program, automatic archive creation is enabled by default.

Each historical archive file contains events for a time period specified by the archive start time and end time. The archive receiving current data is called the primary archive. When the primary archive becomes full, an archive shift occurs: a new archive file is created and becomes the primary archive.

For information on managing future archives that are used to store forecast data, see Learn about future data in Data Archive.