AVEVA™ Historian

About AVEVA Historian licensing

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About AVEVA Historian licensing

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Last UpdatedMay 13, 2026
3 minute read

You must have a license to run AVEVA Historian. Your license allows for a certain number of tags on your server. For example, you may have a 5,000-tag license. As you add tags, the License Server activates a portion of the license, in 50-tag increments. For example, if you initially add 120 tags to AVEVA Historian, License Server activates three 50-tag increments.

If you have used the full number of tags allowed by your license, you can add an incremental license (for example, to add another 25,000 tags) to your existing license.

If your AVEVA Historian server is an Enterprise Server that you are also using as a replication (tier-2) server for another Historian, all of the replicated tags stored on this server count against this server’s license.

Your AVEVA Historian license does not limit the number of these types of tags on your server:

Locally replicated tags (that is, the original tag is on the same server)
Auto-summary tags

If your license expires, or you don’t yet have a license, you can still:

Continue acquiring and storing tags indefinitely
Retrieve values for up to 32 tags for the last 7 days

Set up your license certificate for the Historian SDK

Different setup is required for different connection scenarios, and support different versions of Windows and .NET. See the table below for details.

Scenario	Win32 net48	Win64 net48	Win32 net10	Win64 net10	Required Action / Setup Steps
Local connection (No SMS)	✓	✓	✓	✓	Connection uses gRPC over TLS (same as remote). The local machine's own certificate is already in the local trust store, so ValidateServerCertificate passes automatically; no cert work required. SetServerName='localhost' or hostname. Uses current Windows identity (or explicit credentials). HCAPNG service must be running.
Local connection (With SMS)	✓	✓	✓	✓	Same as above: gRPC over TLS end-to-end. SMS-provisioned cert is also locally trusted, so validation succeeds without any extra steps. No cert export/import required.
Remote + No SMS + Self-signed cert (recommended path)	✓	✓	✓	✓	gRPC over TLS to remote server. Client does not trust the self-signed cert by default and must import it. Server (Admin):aahSecurity.exe -sslport 32565 → generates RSA-2048 cert, registers SSL binding (32565), grants ACL.Export-Certificate -Cert Cert:\LocalMachine\My\<thumbprint> FilePath C:\temp\hist.cer →Restart-Service aahClientAccessPointNG Client (Admin): copyhist.cer →Import-Certificate FilePath hist.cer -CertStoreLocation Cert:\LocalMachine\Root. SetServerName = server FQDN \|UserName = DOMAIN\user \| SecurePassword. If still failing → add server IP toC:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.
Remote + No SMS + Self-signed cert (prototyping / quick test — cert NOT imported)	✓	✓	✓	✓	Workaround: in SDK set connectionArgs.UseUntrustedCommunication = true → bypassesValidateServerCertificate. ⚠️Not recommended for production — quick prototyping or first-time troubleshooting only.
Remote + SMS (same SMS forest) — Enterprise CA or Public CA	✓	✓	✓	✓	gRPC over TLS. Server: enable SMS in Historian Configurator → SMS auto-provisions cert, registers SSL binding (32565), grants private-key ACL. Verify HCAPNG over HTTPS in Event Viewer. Client: no cert import needed; trust comes from the CA chain (SMS forest / Enterprise CA root via GPO / Public CA roots already in the OS trust store). SetServerName = server FQDN \|UserName = DOMAIN\user \| SecurePassword.

For more information about licensing AVEVA Historian and other AVEVA products, see the AVEVA Licensing System Guide.

AVEVA™ Historian