Does Portal For ArcGIS Come With The Same Limitations As ArcGIS OnLine?

[MarkHotz]

I am aware, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, of the limitations of ArcGIS Online (i.e. being incapable of loading more than 1000 features per Shapefile of locally created and stored data).  As most of our data sets contain more than 1000 features, plus we also have a need to share orthophotography, raster elevation data, georeferenced video, and in the future expect to be acquiring LiDAR and satellite imagery, it appears that we need to push our web mapping to its limits, which also seems to greatly exceed the limits of ArcGIS Online.

My question though is does ArcGIS Online still have those same limitations after Portal for ArcGIS has been installed and is running?  Portal is advertised as enabling an organization to bring their ArcGIS Online in-house (i.e. through an organization’s intranet), and giving that organization total control over their ArcGIS Online.  But do those ArcGIS Online limitations still exist after one has implemented Portal?  Are these ArcGIS Online limitations embedded in the software, or are they imposed by ESRI’s web server?  If the limitations are software based then we might have a problem, but if we do have total control over our ArcGIS Online after Portal has been installed then we should be able to drop those limitations too, right?

Do we need to explore other alternatives when serving our heavy data through some form of web-mapping, or will the ESRI web mapping options suffice?

Thanks

[JonathanQuinn · Accepted solution]

Portal for ArcGIS has the same limitation when it comes to adding features directly to a webmap, and this isn't necessarily a software related limitation, but a browser limitation.  The more individual features a browser needs to render, the slower it will perform.  What you'll need to consider doing is creating services to serve your data, rather than render it directly within a webmap.  There are a few avenues you can go through:

Uploading content to ArcGIS Online through My Content

You can publish a hosted feature service to ArcGIS Online, which will contain all of your points.  If you expect to display more than 1000 features at a time, you'll need to increase the max record count returned by the server.

Publishing content to ArcGIS Online through ArcMap

You can author a map in ArcMap and publish directly to ArcGIS Online as a hosted feature or tile layer.  The same concepts above apply for a hosted feature layer.

Publishing content to ArcGIS Online through an app

You can use Esri Maps for Office to publish directly to ArcGIS Online as a feature layer.

You can also publish directly to ArcGIS Server, if you have it installed, so that you can server dynamic services, feature services, or cached services, which can be used in ArcGIS Online as a "hybrid" approach, or Portal for ArcGIS in a full "on premises" type deployment.

Ultimately, it sounds like you need to look into creating a service for your data, whether you host it through ArcGIS Online or Server, and how you actually get it there, is up to you.

[MarkHotz]

Jonathan:

Thanks for your feedback...it is appreciated.  To be honest I'm still a little vague with exactly how web mapping works technologically.  However, we do have a very impressive system in place here with the widest bandwidth I have ever seen in any place I have worked...so that much is a good thing as we are only planning to use our web mapping internally anyway, with perhaps static maps available to the public.

We are in the process of putting together our budget for 2016 and ArcGIS for Server plus Portal is definitely on our list. I am currently processing a lot of spatial data that will be incorporated into our geodatabase...there are a lot of things going on here; things will happen very fast :-).  I appreciate your advice on how to publish content to a web mapping service as you have given us plenty to explore and to discuss with ESRI in the very near future.  Creating a service for our data is where we will go for sure.

Thanks again.

[PaulDavidson1]

Mark:

With ArcGIS Server and a published Feature or Map service you should be able to create a map in Portal/AGOL that does what you need.  I think one step Jonathan didn't mention is registering the AGS services in your Portal (which can be AGOL) after you publish them to the server.

Add Web App Builder (WAB), into the mix and you'll be able to put out dynamic maps with additional functionality.  i.e. an actual web app rather than just a dynamic map.

And the new native app builder, still in beta (3), looks to allow you to create just that, native apps for iOS, etc...

HTH

That said, I have had problems with getting map services inside our firewall to work with WAB and AGOL.  I can get the dynamic map to work but when I try to turn it into an app, it drops the layers in the firewall.

There is a local layer tool that is supposed to help with this.  Since we've switched gears to setting up an in house Portal, I didn't pursue those issues.

[MarkHotz]

Paul:

This is all great to know...thanks for your feedback.  I'm getting the feeling that with a local service everything is possible...but one just needs to massage the system a little to accommodate everything.  That's Ok for me...I like tinkering anyway :-).  Our organization just upgraded all of our cabling, switches and ports to 10 GB so my first impression is that this won't be an issue for us when offering local GIS web services. I'm not worried about presenting our maps and data to the general public as we are not doing that at the moment; hence, we will have time to work around those issues in the future.  Right now we are just working toward hosting local web GIS services, and what you've mentioned here is that we can at least get that started.

Thanks again