Distributed industrial performance monitoring and analytics

A method of monitoring performance of an industrial process using a distributed analytics network / system 100, comprising the steps of: (i) advertising a presence / availability of a centralised cluster in the distributed analytics network, wherein the cluster may be a group of distributed data engines (DDE's) 102a-d, also referred to 'big data appliances', 'big data nodes', 'appliance nodes' and 'data analytics engines' herein; (ii) a data source responds to the advertisement and registers with the central cluster of DDE's, wherein the data source may be a local cluster of DDE's that generates continuous data resulting from the control of an process in the process control plant; (iii) the centralised cluster of DDE's receives the continuous data output by the local cluster; and, (iv) the central cluster streams the received data via a data analytics network to a data consumer, wherein the data consumer may be another analytics node or cluster, a data analytics application, a user interface and/or user interface application, an online data analytics module, another application, and/or a database or data historian. The data analytics network may be overlaid / layered over other control communication networks in a process plant, such that the system may be deployed, added or integrated into existing, legacy process plants which have already been commissioned.