Transpara, OSIsoft partner to deliver time series capabilities in Visual KPI

-- Control Engineering, 4/1/2008

Pleasanton, CA and San Leandro, CA--Transpara Corporation has formed an OEM relationship with OSIsoft, which delivers the PI System data historian. Transpara’s Visual KPI, composite Key Performance Indicator (KPI) software that delivers on-demand operations data from multiple data sources to any desktop or mobile browser, will be embed the PI System.

The OEM agreement lets customers add time series capabilities and calculate KPI status trends even when their back-end data source is not time series-based. The ability to determine trends over time, in addition to gaining instantaneous snapshots of role-based data, lets users benefit from comprehensive, complex analysis of business-critical data.
 
“Customers in the utility and manufacturing sectors rely on both historical and real-time data to make critical decisions around their business operations,” said Michael Saucier, CEO of Transpara. “The relationship with OSIsoft is an important step for Transpara, and enables us to deliver real-time and historical KPI trending based on the most trusted historian in the world. Customers requiring complete access to the full scope of PI System capabilities can migrate to a standalone PI System any time they wish.”

Visual KPI uses Web 2.0 technology to provide Web-based delivery of and access to business-critical data. It recenty earned certification for use with Windows 2008 and leverages the Microsoft infrastructure for all installations. Visual KPI is an Office Business Application (OBA) based on Microsoft Excel, Internet Information Server (IIS) and SQL Server 2005. According to Transpara, it is the only composite KPI engine that works with data sources from Microsoft Office Server 2007 and Windows Server 2008, like Excel Services and the Business Data Catalog. 

Dr. Patrick Kennedy, CEO and founder of OSIsoft, said, “PI is the standard for managing real-time data in order to dynamically enable software. Transpara’s Visual KPI is an excellent example of a browser-based visualization tool that utilizes this unique aspect of PI and demonstrates how PI information can be fed to people in new and innovative ways.”

Through the OEM relationship, Visual KPI embeds data history in the product, facilitating KPI trending and allowing users to create more interesting scorecards with their data, such as “All KPIs that entered the ‘High’ state in the last 60 minutes.” Users can build scorecards and queries to trend KPI status without additional programming, leading to more comprehensive analytics about operations. Adding history to non-time series KPIs is a simple procedure.

Visual KPI for AF
In related news, Transpara announced Visual KPI for AF, the first solution to provide Web-based access to and visualization of OSIsoft AF 2.0 data. Visual KPI for AF is a Web-based add-on to OSIsoft’s AF, the server-based modeling tool that enables an organization to define a consistent representation of its assets, providing attributes and context for PI System and non-PI System data. It integrates with Transpara’s Visual KP to let AF users navigate, view, and analyze data and KPIs across their system hierarchy without any programming. Users get immediate Web-based access to their AF data, and can link any AF Element to KPIs, scorecards and views in Visual KPI.

“Visual KPI for AF provides a Web-based view for AF 2.0 with zero configuration or programming,” said Transpara’s Saucier.  “OSIsoft’s AF brings order, structure and models to many kinds of data, and Visual KPI for AF delivers all of this to users via the Web.  By adding a visual component to the monitoring, aggregation and analysis of AF data, Transpara is helping customers maximize their OSIsoft investment, extending the power of AF in asset-intensive vertical industries, as well as data center management.”

Read about Australia-based Western Power’s use of Visual KPI.

Transpara’s technology has been lauded by many, including the Gartner Group.

--edited by Renee Robbins, senior editor, Control Engineering Daily News Desk