Enterprise geodatabase and hosted feature service

[AlfonsoDodero]

Hello to all,

In my organization we have used ArcGIS Online efficiently for a long time. Now we are starting to explore the opportunities offered by ArcGIS Enterprise and Portal but I have a doubt I would like to share with you:

I know it’s possible to create Enterprise geodatabases and upload them to ArcGIS Server. I'm not sure, however, if I could be able to see the geodatabases from Portal and what would be the practical difference between an hosted feature layer and geodatabase loaded on the server.

I hope I was clear, thank you very much!

[JonathanFarmer_oldaccount]

Hi Alfonso,

There is a lot of ground to cover in your question because there can be a number of reasons why an organization may want to publish a hosted feature layer vs. reference the data in the geodatabase. I'm including our documentation below which does a good job of explaining most of this. If you have any specific questions after reading through, feel free to let me know.

I do want to clarify one thing you mentioned. When you choose to publish data and reference the data in the data source, you aren't actually loading a geodatabase onto the ArcGIS Server machine. Your enterprise geodatabase will still reside on the machine you install the database instance on. When you register that geodatabase with ArcGIS Server, you are setting up a communications pathway where Server can access the data in that geodatabase as needed. So when you publish and choose to reference your data, a web layer is created and it just references the underlying data sitting in the geodatabase. I hope that makes sense.

Data and publishing in ArcGIS Enterprise—Portal for ArcGIS | ArcGIS Enterprise 

Hosted layers—Portal for ArcGIS | ArcGIS Enterprise 

Jonathan

[AlfonsoDodero]

Thank you a lot, now it's a bit clearer: I have to improve my knowledge on registered data and hosted data.

[JonathanFarmer_oldaccount]

Happy to help! Let me know if I can assist further as you research this.