ArcGIS Velocity FAQ (October 2020)

What is ArcGIS Velocity?

ArcGIS Velocity is a real-time and big data processing and analysis capability for Esri's geospatial cloud. It enables you to ingest, visualize, analyze, store, and act upon data from Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. High-velocity event data can be filtered, processed, and sent to multiple destinations, allowing you to connect to virtually any type of streaming data and automatically alert personnel when specified conditions occur. You can also design analytic models to process high-volume historical data and gain insights into patterns, trends, and anomalies.

For more information on ArcGIS Velocity, visit:

What’s included with ArcGIS Velocity?

ArcGIS Velocity includes an app that allows authorized users to create:

Feeds: real-time data ingestion and visualization
Real Time Analytics: real-time processing to identify activity of interest and take appropriate action (similar to ArcGIS GeoEvent Server)
Big Data Analytics: big data processing that supports ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server and other big data tools to identify data patterns and trends
Map/Feature Layers: high-volume data visualization via on-the-fly aggregations
Stream Layers: high-velocity, live data visualization

What are some use cases for ArcGIS Velocity?

ArcGIS Velocity is useful for workflows dealing with observations received from IoT devices and sensors but also for other sources of real-time and big data. It provides easy ways to ingest and immediately visualize real-time information, as well as store observations over time. ArcGIS Velocity also enables you to build analytical processes to automate workflows and answer questions. Overall, ArcGIS Velocity provides many of the same capabilities and solves many of the same use cases as ArcGIS GeoEvent Server and ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server, but provides these capabilities as-a-service on ArcGIS Online.

Use cases include:

Personnel tracking, vehicle and asset tracking, system status monitoring, weather/hazard infrastructure protection
Connecting to IoT systems to visualize sensor observations
Geofencing areas of interest to detect spatial proximity of events
Processing high-velocity and high-volume data
Need to enrich and filter observations to focus on the most interesting event data
Need for data management as-a-service when data has grown in real-time
Need to cut through the noise in data to identify important incidents and trends
Using spatial statistical analysis and machine learning tools with large datasets
For real-time and big data workflows, choosing cloud solutions over managing multiple-machine deployments on premises

Is ArcGIS Velocity available now?

ArcGIS Velocity was released in February 2020, and is an additional subscription on top of your ArcGIS Online subscription.

How is ArcGIS Velocity licensed?

ArcGIS Velocity is an overall capability for an organization and has tiered licensing. It is not licensed by named users. Each successive licensing level adds processing speed and functionality to the previous level. The license levels include:
- Standard
- Advanced
- Dedicated

The Advanced and Dedicated ArcGIS Velocity subscription levels can be augmented with additional processing (compute) or storage. Compute and storage units are purchased separately and can be purchased either as part of the initial purchase or later if it is determined they are needed. Customers should work with their account team for appropriate sizing.
ArcGIS organization administrators can control who in the organization has access to ArcGIS Velocity capabilities by creating roles and granting privileges to create items such as feeds, real-time analytics, and big data analytics.

How do I set-up ArcGIS Velocity?

There is no set-up necessary to get started using ArcGIS Velocity. When you purchase Velocity for your ArcGIS Online subscription, you choose a cloud region in which it will run and receive access to the application within approximately an hour.

How is ArcGIS Velocity for IoT different from ArcGIS GeoEvent Server or ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server?

ArcGIS Velocity differs from ArcGIS GeoEvent Server and ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server on various fronts, including product capabilities and business model. At a high level, ArcGIS Velocity provides real-time and big data capabilities for ArcGIS Online, whereas GeoEvent Server and GeoAnalytics Server provide these capabilities for ArcGIS Enterprise.

ArcGIS Velocity is a solution for customers who want to migrate or have already migrated to the cloud, who want to reduce the time and/or staff devoted to real-time and big data infrastructure. It is also a solution for customers that need support for high data velocity and resiliency. GeoEvent Server is a great solution for customers that need real-time capabilities on-premises or behind a firewall, need more direct control over their infrastructure, and require custom input feeds or analytic tools.

Other differentiators include:

ArcGIS Velocity has built-in high availability and disaster recovery
ArcGIS Velocity is deployed automatically, taking less than one hour to get access
Data stored by ArcGIS Velocity is stored in the cloud
ArcGIS Velocity is not directly extensible due to its nature as a SaaS
ArcGIS Velocity is geared towards operations and geospatial analysts as opposed to GIS administrators
ArcGIS Velocity is offered via a subscription as opposed to a software license

Can I get ArcGIS Velocity with ArcGIS Enterprise?

In the first release, ArcGIS Velocity is being offered through ArcGIS Online. An offering for ArcGIS Enterprise is under consideration.

Where can I find ArcGIS Velocity documentation?

Please visit the documentation page.