Any tips/tricks for speeding up Web Layer publishing to Portal

GarethFinney1 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:25:09 GMT

Hi there,
Just wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks to improve the speed of publishing WebLayers to portal.
We're in the process of transitioning all of our publishing of Map services to Portal and Federated ArcGIS Server site, and have noticed a massive
difference between the old and the new techniques - to the point where it's quite concerning. Our current deployment of map services is all scripted
and deployed via Jenkins, but for the simple tests below, I've pared this back to just running publishing straight from either Pro or ArcMap.

Old Environment (AGS 10.9.1)

Map service deployment from MXD to Standalone ArcGIS Server - single server site
local storage and config-store (c drive)
SSD hard drive on arcgis server node
All registered datastores, to enterprise GDB. No copying of data to AGS Nodes

New Environment (AGS 11.4, Portal 11.4)

Web Layers published to Portal, and Federated ArcGIS server site
Multi server site (2 AGS nodes so far, will be more eventually)
Azure fileshare based storage and config-store (minimal HDD config)
All registered datastores, to enterprise GDB. No copying of data to AGS Nodes

We're noticing a significant difference in timings here.

Publish web layer from ArcPro to Federated multi-server site, azure fileshare storage/config 13.32 Mins
Publish web layer from ArcPro to Federated single-server site, local storage/config 5.13
Publish web layer from ArcPro to Federated single-server site, azure fileshare storage/config 12.32
Publish web layer from ArcPro to Non-federated multi-server site, azure fileshare storage/config 4.37
Publish web layer from ArcPro to Non-federated single-server site, local storage/config 4.37
Publish Map service from arcmap mxd to Non-federated single-server site, local storage/config 2.00

Our older approach, on a MXD with 120+ layers publishing a basic map service to the standalone AGS node will take 2 minutes
The equivalent (arguable perhaps 🙂 aprx and publishing as Web Layer to portal takes 12 minutes plus!

We are running all this in azure on VMs with fairly basic specs on the ArcGIS and Portal nodes. I've increased the AGS nodes in the multi-server site to 4CPU/32GB RAM (up from 2CPU/8GB) and this has had very little effect on results. I think the next test will be to upgrade all the drives on AGS and Fileshares
to SSD, from the default HDD.

From testing so far it would seem that if federating the arcgis server site it's best to use local storage, but this is not an option with multi-server site, and if using a multi-server site, not federating improves publishing speeds greatly?

I'd have expected some sort of hit when publishing to portal, with it's various associated components, ie. federation etc. But to see the results so far is somewhat concerning.

Any advice appreciated

Gareth

Re: Any tips/tricks for speeding up Web Layer publishing to Portal

D_Atkins — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 13:33:06 GMT

I have had trouble publishing larger web maps (100+ Layers) via ArcPro. I've gone ahead and started publishing the 'Service Definition' as a file, then using the Server Manager to publish the service directly to the Portal.

Not sure how I would automate this, though I'm sure there's a way.

Re: Any tips/tricks for speeding up Web Layer publishing to Portal

GarethFinney1 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 22:00:31 GMT

Thanks @D_Atkins

I was just in the process of tweaking a python script to create the .sd file via the .sddraft approach and then see how the publish step will behave across the variations I've tested with. The local esri rep here suggested I do what you've done also to test where the bottleneck is.

topic Any tips/tricks for speeding up Web Layer publishing to Portal in ArcGIS Enterprise Questions

Any tips/tricks for speeding up Web Layer publishing to Portal

Re: Any tips/tricks for speeding up Web Layer publishing to Portal

Re: Any tips/tricks for speeding up Web Layer publishing to Portal