Recommendations for DEV, TEST, and PROD environments in ArcGIS Online

Question

Hi,

we currently manage our own ArcGIS servers and publish numerous map services to the Public.  Back in 2009 when we launched our ArcGIS Server map services the Flex Viewer was the only tool that met our needs for publishing web maps.  We have published many Flex Viewer apps since 2009.  Our server environment includes DEV servers, TEST servers, and PROD servers.  Our Flex Viewer apps must pass through the DEV and TEST stages before we can move them to the PROD servers and make them available to the Public.

We plan to abandon the Flex Viewer and migrate to ArcGIS Online hosted map templates or Web App Builder.  Our IT department tells me we still need to maintain a DEV, TEST, PROD cycle for deploying map viewers to the Public.  My question is "How can I replicate or simulate a DEV, TEST, and PROD environment within our ArcGIS Online subscription?? Can I do this with groups or is there a more robust method?

Thanks,

Bernie.

XanderBakker · Answer

At our client we have a similar situation. There are DEV, TEST and PROD servers inside the organization (not exposed publicly) and we have implemented hybrid solutions that consume both local as public resources using the WAB.

In AGOL we have used a single named user to maintain the 3 environments by creating folders (projectname for PROD, projectname_DEV for development and projectname_TEST for testing). In some cases we have had the need to publish hosted feature services to be able to share it to the public (since the local ArcGIS for Servers servers are not exposed to the outside). Basically like this:

Now, we haven't implemented a true DEV - TEST - PROD environment in AGOL, since this will increment credit consumption for publishing hosted feature services 3 times and the fact that you cannot have hosted feature services with the same name inside your organization (not even if they are managed by different named users).

We did publish in the DEV environment a copy of the hosted feature service (OriginalName_DEV) that allows us to developed (and test) scripts to automatically update the hosted feature service.

To move (promote) content (web maps, web apps) between environments use:

ArcGIS Online Assistant

berniejconnors · Answer

Brandon,

No we don't cluster our servers.  Our PROD servers carry the load for all of our traffic from the Public and our TEST servers are only used for testing.  Our IT department would frown upon the TEST servers being used to support the load of our Public traffic.  Also our licensing fees for the TEST servers are discounted by 50% because they are only used for testing - that suggests to me that our license will not permit us to use our TEST servers to support the load of our Public traffic.

Bernie.

BrandonKeinath1 · Answer

Hi Bernie,

We use a hybrid approach of arcgis server and arcgis online.  We only have a dev/test server and a production server but do use arcgis online goups to segregate content.  People in our "-gistest" groups access data and applications published on our dev/test arcgis server and web maps using these services.  People in our"-gis" groups see only data and maps that are published to the production server.  For each group we have in arcgis online there is a "-gistest" and "-gis" version of the group.

Out of curiosity do you cluster your servers so that when they aren't testing or developing they can help out with production capacity?

Brandon