Systems and methods that provide for historians communicating in a plurality of protocols/languages with various resources via employing an abstraction component that normalizes such communication. Accordingly, the historian can supply a common configuration for various data (e.g., events, command, event, alarm, scenarios, transactions, messages, and the like), and hence provide support for third party devices. The abstraction component can further facilitate: Filtering, Bridging, Routing, Propagation, Transformation and Monitoring of data exchange with third party devices.