Modernizing industrial data strategies involves balancing the use of legacy systems like data historians with new technologies such as time series databases. While historians have been pivotal since Industry 3.0 for reliable data integration and operational stability, they fall short in meeting the demands of Industry 4.0, which requires open standards, scalable storage, and advanced analytics. InfluxDB 3, a time series database, offers these modern capabilities with its open architecture, allowing seamless integration with analytics stacks and reducing vendor lock-in. It supports real-time insights and efficient long-term storage, thus complementing the strengths of historians. Pairing historians with InfluxDB 3 allows businesses to retain the stability of their existing systems while extending their capabilities into analytics and AI, facilitating a gradual and low-risk modernization process. This approach maintains operational reliability while enabling new insights and innovations, aligning with long-term business growth without the need for disruptive overhauls.