Preferred order for stopping and starting components in a high availabity ArcGIS Enterprise in Azure

[HaroldDixon]

All in and earlier post, 4 years ago, it was suggested that correct stop order for an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment is: Data Store, Server and last Portal. It also suggests that the start up order is the same.

Is this still considered correct?

As mentioned in the title I have a high availability system in Azure with a primary 01 and a secondary 02 VM for each component.

Assuming that the starting order is correct, would the shut down order be: Data Store 01, Data Store 02, Server 01, Server 02, Portal 01, Portal 02?

Or would the shut down order be: Data Store 01, Server 01, Portal 01, Data Store 02, Server 02 and Portal 02?

It was also stated that the start up order should be the same.

Assuming that the starting order is the same, would the start order be: Data Store 01, Data Store 02, Server 01, Server 02, Portal 01, Portal 02?

Or would the start order be: Data Store 01, Server 01, Portal 01, Data Store 02, Server 02 and Portal 02?

Thanks for any consideration of and answers to my questions.

[ChrisUnderwood]

Hello @HaroldDixon  , I don't believe this order is strictly defined anywhere, but conventionally I would shutdown from the top of the stack downwards, and startup from the bottom of the stack upwards. So Shutdown order: Portal > Server > Data Store > Database > Operating system, and Startup in reverse order of that.

[HaroldDixon]

Thank you Chris, appreciate your reply!

[TimoT]

Hi @HaroldDixon,

The only documentation I've seen regarding startup order is from the GeoEvent Server documentation: Service startup—ArcGIS GeoEvent Server Help | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise. It recommends an order of Portal > Hosting Server > Datastores > Other server sites. Though I've seen this contradicts advice given by others, including within Esri Community.

In my experience with current supported versions of ArcGIS Enterprise, startup order has no impact. However, in high availability environments, note that datastores do not failover by default upon a standard machine shutdown, but Portal machines do. To ensure you aren't unintentionally triggering Portal failover, start the primary Portal before the standby, and shutdown the standby before the primary.

Since ArcGIS Servers do not follow a primary-standby model, either server could technically be started first, assuming you have correctly configured your Administration URL with a highly available URL.

[HaroldDixon]

Timo, thanks for your reply.

[MuneerMajid]

Never come across a hard and fast rule for this, and I have seen this done in random order without any issues. 

Since the ArcGIS Server is configured with the ArcGIS Datastore, and ArcGIS Server takes less time to restart compared to ArcGIS Datastore and Portal for ArcGIS, so the below order is the best approach to ensure that all components sync correctly.

• Restart the Portal for ArcGIS
• Restart the ArcGIS Datastore
• Once the Portal home page is accessible, restart the ArcGIS Server