The process historian that arrives ready to run.
Pre-built nodes, software, maintenance and replacement included. Add nodes as you grow, while your data stays where it is generated and every team can still reach it.
Why OT data needs a different approach
Most plant floors run on aging Windows infrastructure and proprietary protocols, while cloud tools assume Linux and software developers. Moving manufacturing data to the cloud is costly and slow, and leaves controls dependent on an internet connection.
Legacy historians
Archaic technology that is expensive to scale and change, with no redundancy or high availability by default.
Full-cloud solutions
High latency, internet dependence, compliance challenges and costly re-validation when data structures change.
Factorian
Edge-first and cloud-native, with zero-touch upgrades, near-zero downtime and data that stays under your control.
How Factorian compares
| Capability | Legacy historians | On-prem TSDB | Cloud TSDB | Factorian |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial protocol connectors | ✓ | Custom code | Custom code | ✓ |
| Contextualization with tags and hierarchies | ✓ | Custom code | Custom code | ✓ |
| Real-time stream analytics | ✗ | Custom code | Custom code | ✓ |
| Batch, phase, event and alarm aggregations | Limited | Custom code | Custom code | ✓ |
| Control over data in regulated, low-latency settings | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Event-driven triggers to external apps | ✗ | Custom code | Custom code | ✓ |
| Cloud-native, auto-scaling cluster | ✗ | Custom code | ✓ | ✓ |
| Low startup cost and total cost of ownership | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Zero-downtime upgrades and high availability | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Federation for multi-site, data science and third parties | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Factorian’s own comparison. TSDB means time series databases built for IT logging and observability, such as InfluxDB, TimescaleDB and Splunk.
One platform, four building blocks
Start with a single machine and scale to a global fleet, with the same software at every step. Data is contextualized with asset hierarchy, recipe, batch, phase and events, then archived as numeric, string, array, text and spectral tags with interpolations, derived tags and alerts, on containerized, hyperconverged hardware.
Industrial Gateway
One standard OPC-UA interface, with middleware such as Kepware handling brand drivers for Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Mitsubishi, Omron and more. Every tag keeps its source timestamp, unit and quality code.
Process Historian & Data Platform
A modern historian with derived metrics, Grafana dashboards and low-code apps. Bring your own Python models.
Real-time Infrastructure
Event-driven pub/sub with exactly-once processing, at-least-once delivery and replayable history.
Managed Hardware
Rugged fanless nodes or your own bare metal VMs. Add nodes to add vCPU, RAM and storage. A pre-built platform with no IT administration of devices, short validation time and nodes added as you scale.
Inside a Factorian Edge node
A containerized stack on commodity hardware, from a single node to a self-managing cluster.
Local autonomy. Global visibility.
Unlike store-and-forward historians that copy everything to a central hub, Factorian keeps high-resolution data at the edge and queries it on demand.
Virtual data fabricZero-copy analyticsNo single point of failureBring your own hardware
Each site cluster is fully autonomous, with local dashboards and enough compute to run Python machine learning models. If the corporate link drops, sites keep running.
A central federation cluster reads site data in place, without copying it, and applies role-based access control so corporate users can see one dashboard across sites. Federate tens of nodes and clusters to query millions of tags company-wide, and exchange data with AWS or Azure.
Built for regulated manufacturing
21 CFR Part 11 compliant, following ALCOA+ principles, with a clear line between raw data and configuration.
Immutable raw data
Captured source data cannot be altered or deleted by anyone, including administrators. Metadata changes are fully logged.
Tamper-proof audit trail
Append-only entries with user, timestamp and action. Filter by date, user, tag or activity and export for QA review.
Batch and asset context
An ISA-88/ISA-95 aligned hierarchy ties batches, phases, alarms and parameters into one traceable view.
Controlled access
Active Directory/LDAP, four roles plus custom groups, single logon, inactivity logout and MFA through your identity provider. Accounts are never deleted, so attribution survives.
Online retention is five years or more with no separate archive restore. An independent FDA compliance specialist has reviewed Factorian’s SOPs, features and validation documentation against 21 CFR Part 11 industry standards, and the application passed a “Safe-To-Host” security audit. Validation documentation is available for GxP deployments.
Secure, resilient and sized to your site
Runs inside your existing IT/OT network, including DMZs and data diodes, with no dedicated network required. It does not depend on the internet, restarts automatically if power is lost, and can back up to a private or public cloud.
Encrypted by default
HTTPS for web clients, OPC-UA sign-and-encrypt, and TLS 1.2 email alerts.
High availability
A 3-node cluster fully replicates data in near real time. A node can fail with no manual failover and no timestamp gaps.
Recovery
The system is fully capable of performing secure, comprehensive full-system backups and data restorations.
Efficient storage
Columnar time-series database with over 96% compression, millisecond timestamps and 200+ concurrent queries.
Cluster hardware grades
| Grade | Tag slab | RAM | Storage | Cores |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 1 to 5,000 | 16 GB | 2 TB | 12+ |
| II | 5,000 to 10,000 | 32 GB | 2 TB | 16+ |
| III | 10,000 to 40,000 | 64 GB | 4 TB | 16+ |
| IV | 40,000 to 100,000 | 128 GB | 4 TB | 20+ |
Smaller clusters (under 10,000 tags) use rugged fanless DIN-mount units for the plant floor. Rack hardware is rated 0 to 50°C. Single-node or customer-provided VM deployments are available if redundancy is not needed.
Your historian, wherever your teams work
Capture context once. Reach it from spreadsheets, dashboards, code and AI assistants, all with the same definitions.
Excel Add-In
Live queries, batch and event tables, and refreshable workbooks instead of stale CSV exports.
Grafana Plugin
Batch overlays, phase timelines and alarm markers on zero-code dashboards.
MCP server & AI chat
Ask plain-language questions about batches, SPC, PCA and maintenance. A local chatbot keeps data on-premise.
Open interfaces
Read-only REST API (HTTPS) and MQTT for MES and BI, plus Python library, Streamlit, Node-RED, MATLAB and cloud connectors. Data can be exported for migration at any time.
Bring your analytics tool of choice
GrafanaPower BIExcelStreamlitPythonJMPMATLABRStudioMicrosoft Copilot StudioClaudeOpenAI
Chat with your data to run root cause analysis, from simple trends and correlations to pattern matching, neural networks and LLMs, with the compute on site.
One platform, every team
From the operator to the boardroom, everyone works from the same governed, contextualized process data, whatever your industry.
Operations and management
Live dashboards, alarms and shift reports for operators and supervisors, plus KPI dashboards, standard reports and one view across lines and sites. AI and advanced analytics support continuous improvement.
Process and manufacturing engineering
Trends, SPC, batch and run comparison and root cause analysis, with low-code dashboards and Python for deeper analysis.
Quality, compliance and reliability
Excursion alerts, faster investigations with full context and an immutable audit trail, including 21 CFR Part 11 where you are regulated. Monitor asset health and build predictive failure models with add-on AI development.
IT, OT and data science
Industrial hardware with low maintenance, plug-and-play scaling, open REST, MQTT, Python and MCP interfaces, and room to host your own models and apps.
Built for process and discrete industries
The same platform fits wherever machines and processes produce time-series data.
Process Manufacturing
Batch and continuous processes, SPC and golden-batch style comparisons, with context from recipes, phases and events. For regulated sites, 21 CFR Part 11 compliance, validation support and audit-ready data.
Discrete manufacturing
Line and machine data, OEE and downtime analysis, and edge devices that machine builders can ship inside their equipment.
Oil and gas
Local acquisition and storage at remote or constrained sites, with low latency and no dependence on the internet.
Energy and utilities
Always-on data capture and federated visibility across plants, sites and assets.
Delivered as a pre-built platform with no IT administration of devices and a short path to validation. Add nodes as your operations scale.
Trusted by leading manufacturers
Zydus replaced OSI-PI
3 sites, 12 lines, 86 machines and 5,000+ live tags, live in under 3 weeks. Self-service dashboards cut reliance on system integrators, and audits moved to “always on”.
Voyager unified its bioreactors
A 3-node on-prem cluster connected hard-to-reach legacy bioreactors with no cloud migration, reclaiming 25% of scientists’ research time.
Ocyon, Shilpa, Wockhardt
Central data middleware, secure data sharing with sponsors, and one view across isolated islands of automation.
Local historians, central insight
Site historians speak legacy OT protocols and feed real-time data to central cloud applications and data science teams.
Results as reported by Factorian customer case studies.