NextGen Archiver (NGA)

Currently WinCC OA provides three different archiving solutions:

• Standard archiving (RAIMA + HDB)
• RDB
• NGA

ValueArchive (+ RAIMA) and RDB archiving are used to store tag-based events ("value changes") and alarms (alarm instances) based on timestamps to retrieve / query them. Whereas ValueArchive is intended for smaller, stand-alone installations, the RDB Manager is targeted at larger, networked systems.

The NextGenArchive (NGA) for WinCC OA is a new archiving solution which extends flexibility while keeping the possibilities and strengths of the current methods.

The main features of the new archiving solution are:

• Archiving events (value changes) and alarms using configuration concepts similar to the already existing WinCC OA archiving solutions
• Compatible historical read interface (dpGetPeriod, dpGetAsynch, dpQuery with TIMERANGE, alert-GetPeriod)
• Direct read option to access underlying DB directly from CTRL code (User Interface, CTRL Manager) without using WinCC OA messaging
• Modular DB backend concept with possibilities for user-specific DB backend interfaces
• Storage of values and alerts*) in multiple DBs / backends possible. See chapters Configuration - Backend and Configuration - Backend Profile
• Modern time series DB InfluxDB® as default backend included in WinCC OA
• Reduced storage requirements. According to our measurements with a sample project, the space reduction of storage in InfluxDB® is somewhere between 60% to 80% in comparison to HDB storage consumption (and even more compared to RDB / Oracle storage consumption).
• Usage of one DB for multiple WinCC OA systems
• DB maintenance (backup, restore etc.) controlled by WinCC OA panels and scripts
• Redundant operation for databases with*) (e.g. PostgreSQL®) and without (e.g. InfluxDB®) integrated redundancy features