Number of servers in a typical enterprise configuration

[Lynchburg_GISDivision]

Hey Everyone,    

We are in the beginning stages of a project to migrate our current 10.4.1 set up to Enterprise with a federated Portal. I am curious how most folks configure their Enterprise deployment, specifically interested in the number of servers being utilized and the roles that they play. I am trying to determine early estimates of budgeting for this project as well as gauging potential workload for our network/server team.    

Thanks in advance!

[JonathanQuinn]

It's difficult to give an answer to typical deployments, as there are far too many variables to give an accurate answer. My suggestion is to look at some white papers and Wiki pages on server load to understand how to plan for a site:

System Design Process - GIS Wiki | The GIS Encyclopedia 

Server Software Performance - GIS Wiki | The GIS Encyclopedia 

It's important to know how many users you expect to have, what kinds of services you'll deploy, (GP vs dynamic map service vs cached map service), how many services, and redundancy requirements.

Quite a bit of information in those two links but hopefully they're helpful.

[Lynchburg_GISDivision]

Thanks Jonathan. The links are incredibly helpful. I'm also in need of some real world deployment examples to support my argument/request for resources. From what I've read in the Enterprise deployment strategies section, it appears a minimum of 4 servers are required and in our case, 5 including ArcGIS Server.

[ScottWagoner]

I am interested in this as well. 

We are looking at going from AGOL to ArcEnterprise.   I have done research into every possible solution, I know how many users we will have and what their roles will be.  With that said, I can never seem to get a real world outline of what we truly need or what someone else uses.  I feel like it is a guessing game when it shouldn't be. 

Our company doesn't need much, just the bare minimums but nobody can show me what that looks like.  I am hoping someone here can outline what they use.

[JonathanQuinn]

Capacity Planning can be complicated:

Capacity Planning Tool - GIS Wiki | The GIS Encyclopedia 

but ArcGIS Enterprise is scale-able horizontally and vertically. You can start with a base Enterprise deployment and see how it performs, and easily scale horizontally, (add machines), or vertically, (increase the resources of the machine(s) in the site). I realize that doesn't really help in terms of the budget, though.

[Lynchburg_GISDivision]

Thanks Jonathan. It is helpful, but as you said, doesn't provide any ammunition for budget discussions. Reaching out to few surrounding localities is proving to be helpful. I'll update the post once we decide on our strategy.

[forestknutsen1]

I am no expert... so, for what it is worth: We have Arc Enterprise all installed on one server (federated) and then a reverse proxy on a second server. We have dev, test, and prod. So, three servers for enterprise. Right now they are only used by our employees ( a few hundred people).