Publishing with a lot of layers fails on request timeout?

Question

Hello,

I am publishing a map service from single MXD with about 900 layers. The data is stored in enterprise GDB on separate SQL Server. I am publishing is to Enterprise Advanced AGS on dedicated server.

The process takes hours before creating a service definition and then fails with "request timeout".

What may be a cause of the problem?

I have another site with about 250 layers taking about 20 minutes to publish.

Thanks,

Michael

DerekLaw · Answer

Hi Michael,

I agree with mvolz47‌; suggest you try to reduce the number of layers in your map document. In general, you should try to publish focused map services that contain 20-25 layers (very rough rule of thumb).

Hope this helps,

MikeVolz · Answer

My organization used to have an ArcIMS service with maybe a 100 layers, but that was back in 2008.  ESRI's Best Practices suggest focused apps and mapservices instead of one size fits all mapservices and apps where you load all the layers in your organization.

Now our AGS mapservices are limited to about 50 layers but most of less than 20 layers.