Portal Hosted Server without data copy

Question

Hi

Looking for some advice. I have a Portal for ArcGIS server on Azure and have federated ArcGIS Server on Azure. We had to federate to easily enable the SAML authentication process.

This all works as required however we have one configuration setup we would prefer to have on the ArcGIS Server side. When users upload a map service, we would prefer to keep the datasets as a registered database connection and not the data copy to a hosted database.

Essentially we still want to keep it as it was if the server was not federated. I have previously performed this on a stand alone setup for ArcGIS Server where i set the blockdatacopy option on. The documentation suggests not doing this if we are using portal as a hosted server and while we are for the SAML/uploading option to to upload to my hosted service we would like to keep the connections as they are in the mxd.

Setting up a connection to the ArcGIS server as a ArcGIS Service does not work using the SAML users, only the local setup admin so this option is out for now as it would require two different usernames/password

Anyone set it up like this before?

JonathanQuinn · Accepted Answer

If the original data sources are accessible to the hosting server, then you can register them as data stores and reference the data in the original location.  If you're publishing hosted layers, then unfortunately, you'll need to copy the data to the Server during publishing time.  If the server is the hosting server, then you won't be able to disable data copy.

In regards to the SAML authentication within Desktop, have you tried to enter your SAML credentials instead of the PSA?  For IWA, SSO would automatically authenticate you.  Since SAML is hitting an external authentication mechanism, I'm not sure if ArcMap supports that.