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Indian petroleum refiners can reduce costs and improve production by migrating from outdated data analytics tools If you’re unsure about the right analytics tool to replace ProcessBook, now is a good time to look at the options available
Kevin Jones dataPARC
ProcessBook end of life In late 2020, OSIsoft (now owned by AVEVA) announced the retirement of ProcessBook, PI’s venerable data visualisation toolkit that debuted in 1994. Because of its tight integration with PI’s historian, ProcessBook was widely adopted by process engineers to build trends, dashboards, and process graphics from their PI Server time- series data. Over the years, competitors have come up with newer, more powerful analytics tools, but many engineers have stuck with ProcessBook simply because of their familiarity with the toolkit or because of the difficulty of migrating critical graphics and displays to a new platform. AVEVA’s announcement has challenged process manufacturers to find a suitable replacement. While current users can technically continue to use ProcessBook indefinitely, security updates ended in 2022, and support for the platform ended entirely in December of 2024. OSIsoft’s ProcessBook successor, PI Vision, likely offers the most straightforward integration with PI Server, as it’s part of the PI System, but as with all industrial technology solutions, operators should consider their options closely. Migrating existing ProcessBook screens to PI Vision is supported by the ProcessBook to PI Vision migration utility; however, many users have reported difficulty retaining the full functionality of custom displays and graphics after moving them into PI Vision. PI Vision offers a subscription-based per- user pricing model, which is great for small
organisations with only a few people accessing the platform. For larger manufacturers or enterprise implementations with teams of operators, process engineers, and data scientists accessing the product, PI Vision can become quite expensive. If you’ve been uncertain about the right analytics tool to replace ProcessBook at your facility, now is the time to begin looking at all the tools available to you. Evaluating PI server analytics tools The industrial analytics marketplace has become quite crowded. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of companies out there making analytics products for everything from broad industrial applications to niche manufacturing processes. So, where does one start in searching for an alternative to ProcessBook? What factors should be considered to determine which of these solutions is the best fit? At a high level, you should be thinking about the following: you’re also using PI Server as a data historian. If you’re looking to replace ProcessBook, the most critical question you’ll have to answer is, ‘How well does this alternative integrate with PI server?’ The answer to this question means the difference between a quick, 10-minute connection to PI Server and a costly and time- intensive investment in custom development and new OT infrastructure. Migration is also a key Ease of integration Chances are, if you’re using ProcessBook,
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