Will ArcGIS Enterprise Portal use a file geodatabase to persist hosted feature layer data?

[TimMinter]

In a December 2022 "Sharing Content to ArcGIS Enterprise" Esri course, the instructor noted that when I share an ArcGIS Pro layer to Portal as a hosted feature layer, if I ensure that editing capability is not enabled, then AGE-Portal persists the layer's data as a file geodatabase instead of as an enterprise geodatabase (PostgreSQL, probably).  The instructor said that the file geodatabase is the highest READ performance data structure that AGE-Portal uses for its hosted feature layers.  I want to use the highest READ performance data structure.

I've only now come around to actually make use of this information, and everything changes all the time.  When peeking under the AGE-Portal hood, I'm not seeing (yet, I hope not to dive into the dark box on this) that it's persisting hosted feature layers without editing enabled in anything other than its managed PostgreSQL enterprise geodatabase data store.

So, my questions: 

1. If, in early 2024 I use ArcGIS Pro 3.2.1 to share a layer to AGE-Portal 11.1.0 as a hosted feature layer without editing enabled, in what data structure/format is the data persisted?
2. What is the highest performance data structure/format I can convince AGE-Portal to manage for me?

I have a time-enabled point feature class with ~53m rows that I need to persist in an AGE-Portal data store.  Typically, only about 800 active records are queried and rendered for the full spatial envelope of the data set.  Scale dependencies are set for ~1.5m active records, so they get queried and subsetted to reasonable quantities when zooming in and rendering.

There are numerous other performance, gotcha, bug, and version discrepancy red flags in my questions and examples, and I'm pretty much aware of and controlling for all of them.  I'm specifically interested in understanding what controls I have over AGE-Portal's decisions on what data structures/formats to persist my data that it manages.  I'll be selecting for highest possible READ performance.

Ok, well, I also want to know whether or not AGE-Portal respects and includes all of my performance configurations (field indexes, coordinate reference system, and the like) when it ingests my data into its data store.  Maybe it does some of its own?  I have noticed that it has not been entirely respectful of things like field order and field naming choices, so maybe it's happy to jack up or ignore my other configurations.

Cheers & thanks,

tim

edit:  the only way to see typos is to glance at the post after posting it.

[MarceloMarques]

@TimMinter 

1. If, in early 2024 I use ArcGIS Pro 3.2.1 to share a layer to AGE-Portal 11.1.0 as a hosted feature layer without editing enabled, in what data structure/format is the data persisted?

The ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, Portal is federated with ArcGIS Server and the ArcGIS Data Store is configured with ArcGIS Server, then during publication as "Hosted Service" the data is copied to the ArcGIS Data Store (which in fact is a PostgreSQL Instance). 

Note: you can publish the service without having to copy the data to the ArcGIS Data Store, like in "Hosted Services", for that you need to create a folder that ArcGIS Server can access and add the folder as a Data Store in ArcGIS Server, in that folder you can copy the File Geodatabase or any other data that the map service needs to access, then during publication choose the option to not copy the data to the server.

File geodatabases and ArcGIS Enterprise—ArcGIS Server | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

Disable automatic data copying when publishing to ArcGIS Server—ArcGIS Server | Documentation for Ar...

Copying data when publishing to ArcGIS Server—ArcGIS Server | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

Data sources for ArcGIS Server—ArcGIS Server | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

2. What is the highest performance data structure/format I can convince AGE-Portal to manage for me?'

ArcGIS Data Store performance is scalable once it uses PostgreSQL. ArcGIS Data Store does not support advanced Geodatabase Functionality. For that is necessary to use an Enterprise ArcSDE Geodatabase (Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL). File Geodatabases provide good performance but cannot support multiple users editing and the queries performance are tied to the disk IOPS. On the other hand, ArcGIS Data Store is in fact PostgreSQL which is more scalable and provides better performance and can support multiple users editing. The Enterprise ArcSDE Geodatabase (Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL) provides advanced Geodatabase functionality and even more scalability and more performance once the database administrator has full control of the RDBMS database software.

I hope this clarifies your question.

[TimMinter · Accepted solution]

Thank you, @MarceloMarques.  So, it sounds like the short answer is, "ArcGIS Enterprise Portal 11.1.0 will not use a file geodatabase to support a hosted feature layer item."  Is that correct?

tim

Edit - solution acceptance note:  I feel fairly confident that I have evaluated Marcelo's and Michael's input and understood it correctly.  The simple answer is in my reflection post here, so I marked it as the solution.  Someone tell me if I'm wrong, and I'll adjust.  Thanks all!

[MarceloMarques]

@TimMinter 

File geodatabases and ArcGIS Enterprise—ArcGIS Server | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

[TimMinter]

@MarceloMarques - yep, aware of the opportunities to manage my own data stores.  trying to understand if a hosted feature layer can be configured to use a file geodatabase under the hood based on choices I make when publishing from an ArcGIS Pro layer.

• https://enterprise.arcgis.com/en/portal/latest/use/publish-features.htm 

[MichaelJenkins]

If you publish to an ArcGIS Server and choose Copy all Data instead of Reference Data, or if you choose Reference Data but your data source isn't registered you will get the warning "All data will be copied to the server", then a copy of your FGDB is uploaded to the server and ArcGIS Server does use a FGDB as the data source for the service.  

This is for a stand alone ArcGIS server, though.  When you have Enterprise, it will always use the Data Store (Relational) to store data for feature services when you choose Copy All Data. 

One exception I'm aware of is that if, when publishing from ArcPro, you select "Map Image" in the General tab under Reference registered data, and the location of your source FGDB is not already registered with the server, then it will behave as above and upload a copy of your FGDB.

This only works for Map Image Layers, aka dynamic map services, not for hosted feature layers as far as I can tell.

[TimMinter]

Thank you, @MichaelJenkins.  I'm holding the "publish a file geodatabase, and make a service from it" path to success in my back pocket for now.  Last time I looked at ths approach, it was unclean for several reasons.  Maybe it's improved at AGE 11.1.0.

[MarceloMarques]

File geodatabases and ArcGIS Enterprise—ArcGIS Server | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise