infoTECH Feature

July 19, 2018

5 Reasons to Hire a Data Historian


While you may be confident in your own abilities to be able to analyze and interpret your business data collected from your SCADA network or IoT applications, hiring a data historian can help you take your business to the next level.

Although many business owners are skeptical over whether or not they should hire a data historian, very few regret the decision after following through.

What Is a Data Historian?

Before revealing the major benefits hiring a data historian can have on your business operations, data gathering and data analysis, it’s important to fully understand what a data historian actually is.

A data historian is usually in charge of collecting and analyzing information recorded by computer system software.

Data historians can specifically help with the the identification, technical translation, development and implementation of business solutions. Usually, they also participate with IT Infrastructure personnel to review network design, server needs, maintenance issues, monitoring, etc.

In other words, data historians can be beneficial in multiple different ways to help a business run smoothly and ensure the business is provided with accurate information that is properly analyzed.

Here are five key reasons you should consider hiring a data historian:

1. Improved Data Analysis

One of the more important benefits a company can receive from hiring a data historian is improved data analysis. While many lower level IT employees may be able to conduct basic analysis of collected data, a data historian can really go above and beyond.

By hiring a data historian, businesses are able to know more about customer preferences, employee efficiency, system malfunctions and possible improvements in business operations.

Being able to properly gather data is useless if the data cannot be properly analyzed and interpreted, which a data historian can ensure happens.

2. Increase Data Reliability

It is also crucial to ensure the data collection is accurate and reliable. Without accurate data, having the ability to analyze and interpret data on business operations may cause more problems than it solves.

With an improper data collection setup in place, it is extremely likely that the data will not come out accurate. With a data historian, however, you can sleep well at night knowing your software is properly setup, the data being collected is reliable and the data is being analyzed in the right manner so that your business will know customer needs and how to improve upon weak points in the business.

Therefore, if you want to ensure your business is collecting reliable data so that your business can make the best possible decisions moving forward, you should consider hiring a data historian.

3. Properly Configure Your Data Logging

Configuring your data logging system properly can be challenging for non expert IT employees. However, a qualified data historian will be able to successfully configure your software in a way that allows your data logging to work well and collect useful information.

Many business owners don’t realize how valuable a data historian can be until they hire one. While it may seem your data processing and logging is running smoothly, you may be surprised by just how much benefit your business can receive from hiring a data logging expert, which most data historians happen to be.

4. Prevent Data Loss or System Failure

Data loss or complete system failure should be one of the biggest fears of companies that rely on technology to analyze their customer interactions, worker efficiency, and overall business operations.

When data is lost, all collective data and analysis of that data becomes completely unreliable.

A data historian, however, is exactly that - a Data Historian. They are in charge of keeping an accurate history of the data that is collected. By hiring a qualified data historian, you should be able to prevent any data loss or system failure from crippling your business’ ability to know how successful a feature, product or service is with your customer base.

5. Log Different Forms of Data

While you may currently only be able to log data in a limited capacity, hiring a data historian will allow you the ability to log data in multiple forms, including based on an event, data change and various table formats.

By having the ability to log data in various forms, you are given the flexibility to study different factors that may be affecting your business operations. For example, if you want to study how data changes based on time, but the way your software is set up you can only study data based on an event that doesn’t consider time, you may have a hard time coming up with data that is useful.

However, data historians can help you implement data collection through various different forms and will give you the ability to study almost any type of customer interaction, employee activity and overall business processes.

Data Historians Can Help You Take Your Business to The Next Level

Data historians are a great way to take your business to the next level. Hiring a data historian, in most cases, gives you the ability to be flexible and collect data in various different forms.


After the data is collected, data historians can help to interpret the data in the right manner. They can also ensure your data is never lost and can prevent software failures and malfunctions.

Final Thoughts

While you may be skeptical over whether or not the cost of a data historian is worth what they are able to bring to your business, the results of previous companies don’t lie. In most cases, hiring a qualified data historian leads to an increase in customer satisfaction, improvements in worker efficiency and better business operations in general.

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