---
title: "The modern historian for industrial scale"
description: "Industrial historian purpose-built for Ignition and manufacturing. TimescaleDB delivers thousands of rows per second with microsecond query speeds."
url: "https://www.tigerdata.com/timescaledb-for-ignition"
---


# The modern historian for industrial scale

Ignition Enterprise Historian and TimescaleDB. Built to work together.

Designed for the performance and reliability that mission-critical industrial workloads demand, with the native Ignition experience operators and engineers already know.

## Industrial data is outgrowing traditional historian architectures

The workload changed. The historian architecture needs to change with it.

### More tags (Thousands → millions)

More connected equipment means more time-series streams to ingest and manage.

### Higher frequency (Minutes → sub-second)

Higher-resolution operations create dramatically more writes.

### Longer retention (Weeks → years)

History stays valuable for troubleshooting, optimization, and reporting.

### More demanding apps (Charts → analytics → AI)

The same data now serves more users and more complex queries.

## Ignition Enterprise Historian, powered by TimescaleDB

### Purpose-built for Ignition

Use a dedicated historian with simplified setup, not a general-purpose database you have to design and optimize yourself.

### Powered by enterprise-grade TimescaleDB

Store and query historian data on a production-ready time-series database built to handle high-volume industrial workloads.

### Built and supported together

Developed by Inductive Automation and Tiger Data, with support from both vendors.

## Historian setup, integrated into Ignition

### 01. Deploy

Create a TimescaleDB database cluster in the TimescaleDB Console.

### 02. Select

Choose TimescaleDB as the historian backend in Ignition.

### 03. Connect

Provide the connection information for your TimescaleDB Console.

### 04. Validate & Create

Ignition validates the deployment and configures the historian database.

No separate database design and tuning workflow

## One historian. Three ways to deploy it.

Every deployment includes:

- No tag or user limits
- Enterprise-grade HA and backups
- Operational tooling
- Vendor support

### TimescaleDB for Ignition

For standard Ignition historian deployments

- Single or multiple Ignition gateways
- Designed for medium-scale deployments
- One standard configuration

**Procurement:** Through Inductive Automation

**Pricing model:** Fixed price perpetual license

[Request Private Preview](#request-private-preview)

### TimescaleDB Enterprise

For larger, more complex industrial architectures

- Multi-level or complex gateway architectures
- Flexible sizing and greater deployment control
- Can serve as a LiveSync destination

**Procurement:** Through Tiger Data

**Pricing model:** Fixed price by server configuration

[Explore Timescale Enterprise](/timescaledb-enterprise)

### Tiger Cloud

For fully managed historian deployments in the cloud

- Database infrastructure operated by Tiger Data
- HA, backups, and upgrades handled for you
- Available on AWS, Azure, and GCP

**Procurement:** Through Tiger Data

**Pricing model:** Usage-based pricing

[Explore Tiger Cloud](/go/trial)

## Built for a different class of workload

| Criteria | Ignition SQL Historian | Ignition Enterprise Historian |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Database | SQL Server or PostgreSQL | PostgreSQL + TimescaleDB |
| Scale | Small → medium | Small → very large |
| Performance | Moderate ingest and query workloads | High-rate ingest and fast queries across large histories |
| Data scope | Tag history + relational data | Tag history + full operational context |
| Storage | General-purpose row storage | Relational row storage + compressed columnar tag history |
| Query processing | Raw history pulled into Ignition for processing | Filtering and aggregation executed in TimescaleDB |
| Database Operations | Your team configures and operates the database | Built-in HA, backup, monitoring, and lifecycle management |

## Performance benchmarks

Identical test configuration: 16 vCPU / 128 GB RAM.  2.1 billion record dataset.

| Metric | SQL Historian + PostgreSQL | SQL Historian + TimescaleDB Community (OSS) | Enterprise Historian |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| On-Disk Footprint | 217 GB | 17 GB | 21 GB |
| Sustained Ingest | 77,500 pts/sec | 86,400 pts/sec | 1,040,000 pts/sec |
| 1 Year Aggregation (Raw) | 131 sec | 78 sec | 9.8 sec |
| 1 Month Aggregation (Raw) | 8.3 sec | 6.2 sec | 0.7 sec |
| Aggregate execution | Computed in Ignition from raw history | Computed in Ignition from raw history | Executed natively in TimescaleDB |

### Why it's faster

### Automated partitioning

Incoming data is automatically partitioned by time, and irrelevant partitions are pruned from historical queries.

### Compressed columnar storage

Tag history is compressed in columnar form, allowing queries to read only the columns they need.

### Native historian ingest

History is written through a historian-specific data path designed for sustained, high-rate ingest.

### Database-side analytics

Filtering and aggregation run inside TimescaleDB, while continuous aggregates maintain common rollups.

[Learn more about TimescaleDB](/timescaledb)

## Interested in Ignition Enterprise Historian or TimescaleDB Enterprise?

Talk to Tiger Data about architecture, deployment, and private-preview access.

## FAQ

### What is Ignition Enterprise Historian?

Ignition Enterprise Historian is a new historian experience from Inductive Automation, powered by TimescaleDB. It combines the native Ignition experience operators and engineers already know with a production-ready database foundation built for demanding industrial workloads.

### How is Enterprise Historian different from SQL Historian?

SQL Historian connects Ignition to a general-purpose SQL database that your team configures and operates. Enterprise Historian is purpose-built for historian workloads, with database setup, optimization, high availability, backup, monitoring, and lifecycle management built into the experience. It also pushes filtering and aggregation into TimescaleDB instead of pulling raw history into Ignition for processing.

### Is this just a TimescaleDB database connector for Ignition?

No. Enterprise Historian is a dedicated historian integration, not simply a generic database connection. Ignition works with the TimescaleDB environment to configure the historian-specific database structures and settings required for the workload.

### What is TimescaleDB for Ignition vs. TimescaleDB Enterprise?

Both use the same TimescaleDB foundation, but they are designed for different deployment needs. TimescaleDB for Ignition is the streamlined option for standard single- or multi-gateway historian deployments. TimescaleDB Enterprise is for larger or more complex architectures that need flexible sizing, greater deployment control, and broader database operations.

### Do I need to know TimescaleDB to use Enterprise Historian?

You should not need deep TimescaleDB expertise. Ignition guides the setup and automates historian-specific database configuration so teams do not have to design and tune the database from scratch. The current setup flow is Deploy → Select → Connect → Validate + create.

### Where can I run Enterprise Historian? Does it require Tiger Cloud?

No. Tiger Cloud is not required. The architecture supports customer-controlled deployments using TimescaleDB for Ignition or TimescaleDB Enterprise, as well as a fully managed Tiger Cloud option for teams that want Tiger Data to operate the database infrastructure.

### Does it still support relational data?

Yes. TimescaleDB is built on PostgreSQL, so historian data can live alongside relational operational context in the same database. The architecture supports both relational row storage and optimized storage for high-volume tag history.

### Are there tag or user limits?

No. Enterprise Historian deployments do not impose tag or user limits.

### Can I use open-source TimescaleDB?

Open-source TimescaleDB remains available, but the purpose-built Enterprise Historian experience is designed around the supported TimescaleDB for Ignition / TimescaleDB Enterprise deployment paths rather than a DIY open-source database configuration.

### Is Ignition Enterprise Historian generally available?

Not yet. Request access to the Private Preview to get updates on the General Availability of the offering.