In manufacturing environments, the database configuration can have meaningful effects on the time required to read and write data to the database. Additionally, production databases require maintenance and administration for proper upgrading, access control, and backup. Consider these concerns and others when selecting a database provider and host operating system.
The PTC Thingworx with DPM solution is composed of two databases: thingworx and dpmdb.
The first database, thingworx, supports the ThingWorx Platform application regardless of the added DPM solution. This database can be further divided into two parts: the model database and one or more persistence providers.
- The model database can live alongside the ThingWorx Platform and stores the application configuration data. This data store can also be hosted separately from the application. The user has the option to use Microsoft SQL Server (also refered to as just SQL Server) database on Windows or Linux operating system or a Linux operating system with a PostgreSQL database.
- The persistence provider database(s) allow for the storage of telemetry and other time-series data and can be of three different types, although the user is limited to choose a persistence provider based on the database type selected for the model provider. Here, three database options are explored in detail.
- For a model provider based on Microsoft SQL Server, the user can choose either SQL Server or InfluxDB as a persistence provider.
- For a PostgreSQL-based model database, the user can choose between a PostgreSQL or an InfluxDB database.
- As with the model database, the persistence data store can live with the application or separately.
(Source: Connecting to Multiple Supported Databases section of Storing Data with ThingWorx)
The PTC Digital Performance Management solution relies on its own database, separate from the ThingWorx Foundation model provider and any persistence providers, for aggregating, analyzing, and storing data related to factory performance metrics. This dpmdb database is only supported by SQL Server, but the DPM solution can be deployed on a ThingWorx Foundation instance using either SQL Server or PostgreSQL as its model provider.