ArcGIS Enterprise:

Common Deployment Patterns

Adam Ziegler
Assumptions and prerequisites

• You know what the ArcGIS Enterprise product is and understand the capabilities
• You are an IT administrator (or work as one) who architects and/or installs the software

Recommended prerequisites:
• Prior familiarity with ArcGIS Server
- E.g. you know what ArcGIS Server ‘site’ is.

Bonus prerequisites:
• Prior familiarity with Portal for ArcGIS
- E.g. you’re familiar with the concept of ‘federating’ an ArcGIS Server site with the portal
Need more knowledge?
Don’t panic
Software Components

=
ArcGIS Portal ArcGIS ArcGIS
ArcGIS Enterprise Web Adaptor for ArcGIS Server Data Store
Server Licensing Roles

ArcGIS
Server

GIS GeoEvent Image GeoAnalytics

Server Server* Server Server

One software component, multiple server roles

Components of the base deployment

ArcGIS
Server

Set up as a GIS Server

and configured as the
hosting server, ArcGIS
Server provides the
layers, services, and
horsepower required to
power your Web GIS.
ArcGIS Enterprise | Components of the base deployment

Portal
for
ArcGIS

The web frontend and

infrastructure backend that
supports a user’s interaction
and overall experience with
your Web GIS.
ArcGIS Enterprise | Components of the base deployment

ArcGIS
Data
Store

The ArcGIS managed

data repository that
stores the spatial
content that has been
copied to the system
ArcGIS Enterprise | Components of the base deployment

ArcGIS
Data
Store

Relational Tile Cache Spatiotemporal

ArcGIS Enterprise | Components of the base deployment

ArcGIS
Web
Adaptor

An Esri built software

load balancer that
appropriately directs
network traffic and
serves as a reverse
proxy for Web GIS
access.
Coming from ArcGIS Server to ArcGIS Enterprise

Typical deployment of Base deployment of

ArcGIS Server ArcGIS Enterprise

ArcGIS Portal
Web Adaptor for ArcGIS
Web Adaptor

ArcGIS ArcGIS Server

ArcGIS Server Web Adaptor (GIS Server role
as hosting server)

ArcGIS Data Store

(relational + tile cache)
Base Deployment Logical Architecture

ArcGIS Portal
Web Adaptor for ArcGIS

ArcGIS ArcGIS Server

Web Adaptor (hosting server)

ArcGIS Data Store

(relational + tile cache)
Base Deployment Logical Architecture

ArcGIS Web Adaptor

Integrates with your
organization’s existing web
server to provide a single
endpoint that distributes
incoming requests and
enables you to use web-
tier authentication.
Base Deployment Logical Architecture

Portal for ArcGIS

The software component that
enables the ArcGIS
Enterprise portal. Portal for
ArcGIS is the web frontend
and API backend that
supports a user’s interaction
and overall experience with
your Web GIS.
Base Deployment Logical Architecture

ArcGIS Server
In a base deployment ArcGIS
Server should be configured
with a GIS Server licensing
role and as the hosting
server. In this capacity it
gives you the ability to
publish and share maps and
layers from ArcGIS Pro using
your own business databases
and by copying data to the
server.
Base Deployment Logical Architecture

ArcGIS Data Store

The ArcGIS managed data repository that stores
the Portal’s hosted content. It is not a
replacement for your enterprise geodatabases.
Base Deployment Logical Architecture

ArcGIS Data Store

• Relational
• Tile Cache
• Spatiotemporal
Functionality of the base deployment

• Everything from traditional ArcGIS Server

- Ability to publish map services, feature services, network services, geoprocessing services,
geocoding services, and much more.
- Ability to publish content from referenced data sources such as file-based data (file
geodatabases, shapefiles) as well as enterprise geodatabase and other spatially enabled
databases.
• Ability to give users option to do self-service mapping
- Publishing hosted data where users do not need access to enterprise geodatabase or trusted file shares-
they can copy data to the system in a seamless fashion similar to the experience from ArcGIS Online

• Story maps and other configurable app templates

• Web AppBuilder for quickly creating customized web apps
• Full suite of Esri apps and other custom apps built on the ArcGIS API for Javascript
and ArcGIS Runtime SDKs
Base Deployment Configuration Quick Steps

ArcGIS Portal
Web Adaptor for ArcGIS
(Portal)

ArcGIS ArcGIS Server

Web Adaptor (hosting server)
(Server)

ArcGIS Data Store

(relational + tile cache)

1 configure Web Adaptors

Base Deployment Configuration Quick Steps

ArcGIS Portal
Web Adaptor for ArcGIS
(Portal)

ArcGIS ArcGIS Server

Web Adaptor (hosting server)
(Server)

ArcGIS Data Store

(relational + tile cache)

2 configure the data store and register with server

Base Deployment Configuration Quick Steps

ArcGIS Portal
Web Adaptor for ArcGIS
(Portal)

ArcGIS ArcGIS Server

Web Adaptor (hosting server)
(Server)

ArcGIS Data Store

(relational + tile cache)

3 federate server with the portal and designate as

hosting server
Base Deployment | Choosing a pattern

• Choosing a base deployment pattern

- All-in-one single machine deployment Portal
for ArcGIS
- Multi-tier deployment

• Three tiers to consider: ArcGIS Server

- Portal for ArcGIS (web tier) (hosting server)
- ArcGIS Server (app tier)
- ArcGIS Data Store (data tier)
ArcGIS Data Store
(relational + tile cache)
Scaling and expanding the base deployment

• When do you need to scale out the Portal for ArcGIS tier?
- Rarely!
- Provide more resources for your existing machine(s)
- Note: Use two machines with Portal for ArcGIS for high availability purposes not for scaling
- Monitor CPU and memory usage to see if you need more resources
Scaling and expanding the base deployment

• When do you need to scale out the ArcGIS Server hosting server site?
- If your hosting server is performing double duty:
- Hosted services
- Traditional services published from ArcMap or ArcGIS Pro
- Consider setting up a separate ArcGIS Server site for this purpose!

- If your users are making heavy use of the built-in analysis tools via the map viewer or ArcGIS
Pro
- If you have a lot of Insights for ArcGIS users

OR
Scaling and expanding the base deployment

• When do you need to scale out the ArcGIS Data Store tier?
- Two different types of data stores in the base deployment

When to scale relational data store:

• Relational Data Store - Lots of users requesting data concurrently from many different
hosted services: more memory often helpful
- Hosted feature layers - Lots of concurrent requests: CPU can become a bottleneck
- Insights for ArcGIS
• Tile Cache Data Store - Monitor for bottlenecks!
- Scene Layers (3D) - Consider ArcGIS Monitor
Known as System Monitor from Esri Professional
Services previously.

Note: the spatiotemporal big data store is - CPU, memory, disk I/O are all important
not part of the base deployment. It
supports GeoEvent Server and - Pre-10.5.1 versions do not always handle out of
GeoAnalytics Server workflows covered in disk space conditions gracefully. Avoid
later slides. running out of disk space!
Deploying
How to deploy
• It’s not all about deploying components by hand anymore!

For those who want to deploy

For GIS professionals For those with DevOps
in the cloud

ArcGIS Enterprise Machine Images Chef PowerShell DSC

Builder
A wizard that installs and configures Easily deploy and configure ArcGIS Automate installation and
ArcGIS Enterprise on a single Enterprise in the two most popular configuration in your infrastructure.
machine. public cloud environments.
Scaling out
Expanding out from the base deployment

A couple of starting points:

• You can have any number of federated ArcGIS Server sites within your ArcGIS
Enterprise deployment

• Different server roles have different recommendations and restrictions

Expanding out from the base deployment

• Multiple reasons and ways to add to the base deployment

1. Adding additional GIS Server sites

- Isolate hosting server site from traditional GIS Server duties
- Have dedicated GIS Server sites for various purposes: heavily used map services,
geoprocessing services, …
2. Adding additional capabilities
- Image Server
- GeoEvent Server
- GeoAnalytics Server
GIS Server
Adding additional GIS Server sites to your deployment

- GIS Server
- You already have a GIS Server site as part of the base deployment
- Consider if you need additional sites- you can setup as many sites as make sense for
your particular deployment following workload separation recommendations
- Common workloads that benefit from separate site(s):
- Highly used sets of dynamic map services
- Heavy-weight geoprocessing
- CPU-intensive routing services
- Mission critical services that have different SLAs than other services
Adding additional GIS Server site to your deployment

Base deployment

GIS Server
(hosting)

GIS Server
(mapping etc.)
Adding additional GIS Server site to your deployment

Base deployment

GIS Server
(hosting)

GIS Server
(geoprocessing)

GIS Server
(mapping and
visualization)
Image Server
Adding Image Server to your deployment

• Image Server provides two distinct capabilities

- Dynamic image services from your own mosaic datasets
- Serve large collections of imagery and rasters with dynamic mosaicking and on-the-fly processing
- N number of sites
- Raster Analytics
- Extracting information from imagery- distributed processing and analysis of imagery and rasters
creating new persisted output at full source resolution
- Only 1 site can do raster analytics
- Choose whether to have separate site for raster analytics or one site for both traditional dynamic
image services and raster analytics.
- At 10.5-10.6 the results of raster analytics will always be hosted out of the raster analytics site.
Beginning at 10.6.1, you have the option of designating a separate image hosting site that will be
the site that hosts results from raster analytics.
Adding Image Server to your deployment

Base deployment

Image Server Site

One Image Server site for both capabilities

Adding Image Server to your deployment

Base deployment

Image Server Site

(raster analytics)

Image Server Site

(dynamic image services)

Separate Image Server sites for each capability

GeoAnalytics Server
Adding GeoAnalytics Server to your deployment

• GeoAnalytics Server provides distributed computing infrastructure for processing

large volumes of vector and tabular data
- One site for GeoAnalytics Server
- Requires spatiotemporal big data store to be configured with the base deployment
- Note: ArcGIS Data Store (relational, tile cache, spatiotemporal) is always configured with the
hosting server site
- Provide at least 16 GB memory and at most 64 GB for spatiotemporal big data store

- Many variables go into sizing multi-machine deployment

- More machines or more cores or more memory does not always mean faster processing!
GeoAnalytics Server performance considerations

• Variables that affect performance

- Type of data: file-based (CSV, shapefiles) vs. web-based (feature service) vs. big data store
(HDFS, Hive, Azure Data Lake)
- Location of data: local (low latency) vs. on network (higher latency)
- LAN characteristics: 100 mbps vs. 1 gbps, latency between machines and data source
- Characteristics of data storage system: SSD vs. traditional HDD (disk I/O)
- Size of data: tens of MB vs. hundreds of MB vs. gigabytes vs. terabytes
- Ratio of CPU cores to amount of memory per core
- Ability to write result data as fast as it is being generated (scale spatiotemporal big data store
too!)
- Likely many more..

Prototype deployment using your own data and workflows

Adding GeoAnalytics Server to your deployment

Base deployment

Spatiotemporal big data

store

GeoAnalytics Server Site

Minimum 3 machines to support GeoAnalytics; scale massively beyond that

Adding GeoAnalytics Server to your deployment

Base deployment

Spatiotemporal big data

store

GeoAnalytics Server Site

Remember to scale spatiotemporal big data store with additional nodes when adding additional GeoAnalytics Server machines
GeoEvent Server
Adding GeoEvent Server to your deployment

• GeoEvent Server provides the ability to create GeoEvent services to process real-
time data ingestion and processing

- At GeoEvent Server 10.5 and prior the strong recommendation is to use single machine
sites. With GeoEvent Server 10.6 and up it is possible to scale out a site.
- Each site must be powerful enough to handle peak throughput for the combined set of
GeoEvent services (scale up!)
- To handle multiple input stream that go beyond a single site: use additional separate
GeoEvent Server sites
- Archiving large volumes of data: use spatiotemporal big data store
Adding GeoEvent Server to your deployment

Base deployment

GeoEvent Server site

Adding GeoEvent Server to your deployment

Base deployment

Spatiotemporal big data

store

GeoEvent Server site

Adding GeoEvent Server to your deployment

Base deployment

Spatiotemporal big data

store

GeoEvent Server site GeoEvent Server site

Use multiple single machine sites to scale for 10.5.x; don’t use multi-machine sites for GeoEvent Server 10.5.x and prior
Adding GeoEvent Server to your deployment

Base deployment

Spatiotemporal big data

store

GeoEvent Server site

For 10.6 and higher: scale out individual GeoEvent Server sites with multiple machines
Recap: expanding out from the base deployment

- GIS Server
- as many sites make sense for your particular deployment following workload separation
recommendations
- E.g. separate sites for different sets of map services, separate sites for heavy-weight
geoprocessing, separate sites for CPU-intensive routing services, ..

- Image Server
- as many sites make sense for your particular deployment of dynamic image services
- there can only be one site for raster analytics

- GeoAnalytics Server
- there can only be one site for GeoAnalytics Server

- GeoEvent Server
- as many sites as makes sense for your particular deployment
- at 10.5 and prior: strong recommendation to use single machine sites
Other important topics
Dispelling old myths and updating best practices

• Do not use silo’ed ArcGIS Server sites! (cloned machines)

- Significant improvements in multi-machine site performance and stability in 10.3.1+
- Silo’ed sites do not work in the federated model and with ArcGIS Pro
• Do not use clusters!
- Discouraged on any version. Officially deprecated as of 10.5.1. Will not be supported in 10.7!

• Do federate your ArcGIS Server sites

- Required for the modern deployment patterns
• Do use the web adaptor unless there’s a good technical reason not to
- Simplifies a lot of configuration that otherwise has to be done manually.
Dispelling old myths and updating best practices

• “Windows can only run ~250 service instances (SOC processes)”

- This is a Windows imposed limitation that can be lifted by changing Windows settings
- Edit the registry: http://support.esri.com/technical-article/000001218

• “Linux can only run 250 service instances (SOC processes)”

- Issue at 10.3.x: upgrade to 10.4 or higher
Takeaways

• Understand the base deployment

• Don’t overcomplicate things unnecessarily: small to medium-sized organizations
can often use a single machine deployment in production.
• Stay up to date on best practices. They change over time!
- What was good advice for 10.2/10.3/.. is not necessarily as good for 10.5/10.6/..

• ArcGIS Enterprise is designed for the federated server model

- Features that require the federated server model:
- ArcGIS Pro publishing up to and including Pro 2.2 and Enterprise 10.6.1
- 3D scene layers, Utility Network, Parcel Management (coming at 10.7)
- Raster Analytics and GeoAnalytics
- Archiving large volumes of data from GeoEvent Server
- …

• Understand the individual server roles and the recommendations and requirements
of each- they’re not all the same!
Don’t panic