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Cloud Data Archive
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The Cloud Data Archive keeps an off-site copy of each appliance's tag history. The appliance uploads its history one complete hour at a time; in the portal you can export any range as CSV and, on Archive Long-Term, write it back to an appliance.
Requirements
- An Archive, Archive Long-Term, Cloud Complete or Cloud Complete Pro plan covering the appliance.
- The appliance registered to your account, with Cloud Data Archive switched on for it in the portal.
- Cloud health reporting turned on on the appliance, and outbound internet. See Connecting an appliance.
- The historian writing to the built-in InfluxDB (storage backend influx or both). With the SQL backend only, nothing is archived. See Historian storage.
No licensed feature on the appliance is needed.
Turn it on
- In the portal, open the appliance (Appliances → the appliance) or Data Archive.
- Switch Cloud Data Archive on for the appliance.
- The appliance picks it up at its next health report (within about a minute), waits 20 seconds, and starts uploading.
What gets uploaded, and when
- History is read from the appliance's InfluxDB and sent as compressed hourly chunks (UTC hours). An hour is sent once it ended at least 5 minutes ago.
- The first time, the appliance backfills up to the last 7 days. Older history is not uploaded.
- Each tag keeps its device and tag names as they were at upload, so exports stay readable after renames.
- Hours with no data are skipped. Very busy hours (over 400,000 values) are split into several uploads.
- The appliance pauses 2 seconds between hours to spare the uplink.
Outages
The archive is store-and-forward: while the internet is down, uploads retry with backoff (30 seconds up to 15 minutes) and resume from the last hour sent. Nothing is lost as long as the appliance still holds the history — by default the local InfluxDB keeps data indefinitely, but a shorter retention policy limits how long an outage the archive can catch up from. If the historian's own store-and-forward buffer is still draining, the archive waits for it (for up to 30 minutes if the buffer is stuck).
Limits
| Limit | Archive | Archive Long-Term |
|---|---|---|
| Retention | 13 months (395 days) | 7 years |
| Values uploaded per appliance per month | 50 million | 250 million |
| Restore to appliance | No | Yes |
When the month's allowance is used up, uploads pause until the next UTC month and then catch up. Hours older than the retention are skipped. If the plan lapses, archived data is kept for 30 days.
The Data Archive page
The page shows Appliances covered, Retention and Values per appliance / month, then a card per appliance with its state (Archiving, Waiting for plan or Off), last upload, Covers (date range), Hours archived, Values, Tags, Stored, and an Uploaded this month meter.
Export to CSV
- Click Export on the appliance.
- Search for and tick tags (up to 200 per export).
- Pick the Date range (UTC).
- Choose Detail: Hourly summary (count, min, max, average and last value per hour, numeric and on/off tags, any range) or Every recorded value (up to 31 days per export).
- Click Download CSV.
Raw exports have columns timestamp,device,tag,value; hourly ones timestamp,device,tag,count,min,max,avg,last. Timestamps are ISO 8601 UTC. Text starting with =, +, - or @ is prefixed with an apostrophe so spreadsheets do not run it as a formula.
Restore to an appliance (Archive Long-Term)
Use this after replacing an appliance's storage, for example.
- Click Restore on the appliance (owner only).
- Pick the Date range (UTC) (up to 366 days per job) and either tick tags or All archived tags.
- Click Queue restore and confirm.
The appliance checks for restore jobs every 5 minutes while it is online with archiving on, then writes the values back into its historian with their original timestamps. Values already on the appliance are overwritten with identical values, not duplicated. Progress (hours done, values written) shows in the restores table.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Waiting for plan | No archive plan covers the appliance | Subscribe, or raise the plan quantity |
| Card stays Off | Archive switch off for this appliance | Switch Cloud Data Archive on |
| No uploads although switched on | Cloud health reporting is off, the appliance has no internet, or no license key | See Connecting an appliance |
| No uploads, appliance online | Historian backend is SQL only | Use influx or both |
| Uploads stopped mid-month | Monthly allowance reached | Wait for the next UTC month or move to Archive Long-Term |
| Only the last 7 days appear after switching on | First-time backfill limit | Expected |
| Restore stays queued | Appliance offline, reporting off, or archive switched off | Bring it online with archiving on |