Is Portal really necessary in ArcGIS Enterprise?

Question

Is Portal really necessary in ArcGIS Enterprise for all situations?  I can see the justification for Portal in many private corporations where having an internal / private version of ArcGIS Online (AGOL) is beneficial.  But I work for a government agancy that manages a spatial data infrastructure (SDI).  Our goal is to make all of our data and map services available to everyone.  We really do not have a need for Portal.  Is there already a supported deployment model that does not require Portal?

We would prefer to just use ArcGIS Server to host our own map services and use AGOL to publish:

* items (pointers) to our map services,
* web maps,
* web apps.

I fear that Esri is going to create workflows that will make Portal a requirement for all ArcGIS Enterprise users.  Does anybody else agree that we need an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment model that does not require Portal??

Thanks,

Bernie.

George_Thompson · Answer

Yes, it is a core component of an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment: https://enterprise.arcgis.com/en/get-started/latest/windows/what-is-arcgis-enterprise-.htm

tadaskiškėnas · Answer

Same question:

is Portal mandatory for ArcGIS enterprise?

JamesAshton · Answer

I am struggling with this now also. I think once we actually get working on new workflows in Pro and Enterprise we will see how even more entrenched Portal is. ie imagery and analytics workflows writing back to portal... I am hooked on SaaS/AGOL (getting servers or access to cloud gov is complicated)  I will be interested in how others heavily invested in AGOL will navigate the base deployment requirements. Right now I see potentially using portal as a small site for the key GIS power users and Enterprise/admins and the rest of the Organization ~200 stick with AGOL... just likely means some replication/collaboration from portal to AGOL. I would not want to migrate everyone from AGOL to portal either. I think we need some real-life experience examples. Thanks for posting