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ABB Knowledge Manager Connector — In Your OT Environment

The VirtualForge ABB Knowledge Manager connector is designed to fit cleanly into an operational technology (OT) environment. It makes ABB Knowledge Manager (ABB KM) data usable in Seeq without adding a new system of record, moving historian data out of its trusted home, or changing how your plant systems run.

Where the connector sits

The connector is a standard Seeq connector. It runs inside a Seeq Remote Agent — a process installed on infrastructure separate from the Seeq Server — and is registered as a datasource with your Seeq Server. From there:

  • It reads from ABB Knowledge Manager over the KM API, on demand, using the credentials and network path you configure.
  • It builds an asset tree of signals in Seeq that mirrors your Knowledge Manager tag catalog, so your data is organized and discoverable.
  • It serves time-series data through to Seeq when a user trends or analyzes a signal, rather than staging a separate copy.

Because the agent sits between Seeq and Knowledge Manager, the connector never needs to run on the Seeq Server itself, and Knowledge Manager is only ever read — never written to.

No duplication of historian data

The connector does not create a second historian. ABB Knowledge Manager remains the authoritative store for your time-series data; Seeq references that data rather than copying it wholesale. This keeps your OT data footprint unchanged, avoids the drift and reconciliation problems that a parallel copy introduces, and means the numbers your teams see in Seeq are the numbers in Knowledge Manager.

What it means operationally

  • A read-only path into OT. The connector reads Knowledge Manager and writes only to Seeq, which keeps its interaction with your control-system network narrow and predictable.
  • Stable identities across upgrades. Seeq analyses key on the identity of each signal and asset. The connector is designed to keep those identities stable across upgrades, so existing worksheets, calculations, and dashboards keep resolving after an update.
  • Data organized for the people who use it. Engineers and analysts browse a hierarchy that reflects the plant, instead of hunting through a flat tag list.

Why Connectors ++ matters in OT

OT networks are constrained and busy, and connectivity that works in a demo can behave very differently under real load. The connector inherits VirtualForge's Connectors ++ capabilities, which are built for exactly that setting:

  • Resilient data access turns bursty or throttled source responses into recoverable, self-limiting behavior instead of silent data loss — important when pulling large volumes from a live historian.
  • Managed indexing keeps the Seeq view current on a schedule you control, so operators see up-to-date structure without manual re-indexing.
  • Health visibility inside Seeq surfaces connector activity — run counts, outcomes, and data-flow behavior — as trendable information in Seeq itself, so the people responsible for the data can see how it is flowing without needing access to the agent host.
  • Defined licensing and support give you a clear entitlement and a known path to help.

Together these make the connector something you can run and trust in production, not just stand up once. For the full platform picture, see the VirtualForge platform overview.