Field notes
Practical write-ups from real Ignition projects — alarms, Perspective, MES, MQTT, backups and the small decisions that keep a SCADA system maintainable.
What the Core Historian changes
A new historian option changes where your data lives, what protects it, and which assumptions from 8.1 quietly stop being true.
Read → Aug 2026Where your alarm history actually lives
The question "what alarmed last Tuesday" has a different answer depending on one profile you may not have configured.
Read → Aug 2026Project inheritance, and the trap at the bottom of it
Sharing screens and scripts across projects works well until a gateway script starts running four times a night. Why that happens, and what counts as safe to share.
Read → Aug 2026A recovery drill for an Ignition gateway
Having a backup and having a recovery are different claims. How to rehearse one without writing into production or unactivating your licence.
Read → Aug 2026Tag history or a transaction group?
Two ways to get process data into SQL. The deciding question is whether your values need to share one timestamp in one row.
Read → Aug 2026Tag groups: direct, leased and driven
Usually the cheapest performance work available is deciding what genuinely needs reading every second. Three modes, and two settings that change what they mean.
Read → Aug 2026Ignition Edge at a remote site: what you actually get
For pump stations and unmanned sites, Edge answers the right question. Three published limits decide whether it fits, and one of them is shorter than people assume.
Read → Aug 2026Where your Ignition script actually runs
A lot of Ignition scripting confusion is a scope question wearing a different hat. Three scopes, plus the one the Designer quietly adds.
Read → Aug 2026UDTs: where they pay off, and where they trap you
The case for UDTs is obvious and correct. The failure modes take a year to show up, and Ignition will tell you about them if you know which tool to open.
Read → Aug 2026Session permissions are not gateway permissions
Gateway access is a superset of session authority, unconfigured views are public, and a view script runs on the gateway. Three things worth checking.
Read → Aug 2026Ignition redundancy: what actually fails over
Redundancy covers the gateway. Working out what it does not cover, and what you have to arrange separately, is the part worth doing before you need it.
Read → Aug 2026What happens when the database goes away
Store and forward protects history in transit. It does not keep that history visible, it does not buffer without limit, and on 8.3 one historian skips it entirely.
Read → Aug 2026Why that module will not install on your gateway
The install is blocked, someone finds a flag that makes it work, and the gateway is quietly different afterwards. What that flag actually does.
Read → Aug 2026Why your gateway backup keeps growing
What a gateway backup actually contains, what it leaves out, and why nothing prunes it for you.
Read → Aug 2026A REST value without quality is lying to your operators
Fetching a REST value is easy. Keeping quality and source timestamp honest is the part that decides whether operators can trust the number.
Read → Aug 2026Why an IP camera will not play in a browser
RTSP is not a web protocol. Why the stream has to be translated before a Perspective screen can show it.
Read → May 2026Moving alarm routing out of tags
Why a dedicated roster beats a wall of tag-change scripts.
Read → Apr 2026Perspective vs Vision in 2026
When the old client still wins — and when it really doesn't.
Read → Mar 2026MES downtime without the license
A lightweight scripting pattern for OEE on a budget.
Read → Feb 2026Stop polling remote sites
MQTT and Sparkplug B for pump stations on cellular links.
Read → Jan 2026The gateway backup you'll wish you had
What to capture before the SSD dies — and how to restore it fast.
Read → Dec 2025Named queries beat script soup
Keeping SQL out of button scripts pays off the first time you refactor.
Read → GuideHow much does an Ignition project cost?
The four cost buckets — and what actually moves the number.
Read → GuideIgnition vs Wonderware: licensing & cost
How the licensing models really compare on a real project.
Read → GuideReplacing Wonderware with Ignition
Migrating off Wonderware without stopping production.
Read → GuideMigrating FactoryTalk or iFIX to Ignition
A practical path off legacy HMI and SCADA.
Read → GuideHow to choose an Ignition integrator
What to look for — and the red flags to avoid.
Read → GuideIgnition alarm notification & on-call
Rosters, escalation and paging the right person.
Read →