The use of Industrial IoT (IIoT) is heavily reliant on time series data, but challenges such as navigating the divide between physical and digital realms, remote visibility, and transferring domain expertise to new generations of manufacturing professionals hinder its adoption. Legacy industrial process historians have limitations in terms of cost, complexity, and interoperability with other systems, which can limit innovation and optimization opportunities. However, embracing technology like InfluxDB can provide a more proactive and efficient environment by facilitating data collection, transformation, and automation, enabling better results through failure detection, predictive maintenance, and optimization. By combining InfluxDB with other open source software and processes, businesses can unlock significant potential in their IIoT tech stack.