Recommendation Requested - Publishing 150+ unique services in ArcGIS Enterprise – ArcGIS Managed or User manged

[AdityarajChavada]

Hello GeoNet community power users,

This question is for those experience technical implementation leads who have deployed ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6 and hopefully published 150+ services solely from a publication environment.

Like many organizations around the world, we like to configure and scale various tiers (App tier - ArcGIS Server, Data tier - ArcGIS Data Store) in the ArcGIS Enterprise following best practices while meeting the business requirements. So, our end goal here is get maximum return on your investment.

Ok. Enough with the goal. What seems to be the problem here?

Here is the situation. Our aim is to publish services and create feature layers on Portal for ArcGIS from 200+ Feature classes out of our publication enterprise geodatabase on the ArcGIS Enterprise. We know that the resulting services on ArcGIS Server from and feature classes in Publication database are mostly permanent and thus have a very long-life span unless the business needs are changed. The updates/deltas for these feature classes  are received on daily for most (roughly about 60% ), weekly for some (roughly about 20% of datasets), monthly, annually and ad-hoc basis for remaining from system of record (transactional DB).  So, you guessed it right, it is complex environment requiring a solid strategy.  Few last notes. Some of layers require complex symbology. Lastly, there is no data editing required for these services are coming from a publication environment.

Ok. What seems to be the problem here again?

Our problem is choosing the most practical publishing strategy from the given multiple options now available in ArcGIS Enterprise – User managed or ArcGIS managed?  

We have done our homework and know that we options on the table. It boils down to which one is most practical, sustainable long term, offers maximum return on our investment for the end user on publishing them. Did I mention that it needs to follow best practices?

Option A - Publish them all as Hosted Feature services on Data Store

Pros:

Extremely less resource intensive

Cons:

All ArcGIS managed

Disconnected from enterprise geodatabase

Update process require to keep the data in sync

Option B - Publish them all as Registered Map services to shared pool instance after upgrading to 10.8

Pros:

All User managed

No separate update process required

No restrictions on symbology and labelling

Cons:

Resource intensive per ArcSoc instance (RAM on ArcGIS Server) but manageable (thanks to Pooled instance functionality available in 10.7+)

Option C - Publish them all as Registered Feature services with shared pool instance after upgrading to 10.8

Pros:

All User managed

No separate update process required

No restrictions on symbology and labelling

Cons:

Even more resource intensive (compare to map service only?) per ArcSoc instance (RAM on ArcGIS Server) but manageable (thanks to Pooled instance functionality available in 10.7+)

If you are still reading this and wanted to know what we have done so far? Ok. We have watched best practices technical sessions by ESRI (shown below), consulted technical support team, and went through ever growing technical documentation and wait we do know about the hot from the press White paper that talks about ArcGIS managed vs User managed but we are still debating on the publishing strategy for our scenario:

1)  ArcGIS Enterprise Best Practices for Layers and Service Types,

2)  ArcGIS Enterprise Architecting Your Deployment 

I suspect that this is not a unique situation and expect that many organizations have come with their workflows on publishing services. So, please share your comment below and let us which option makes more sense considering we need most possible return on our investment and sweat that is involved in authoring and publishing these services on ArcGIS Enterprise.  

If you are still reading this, I am little of proud of my writing and importantly wanted to thank you for making to the end. I look forward to hearing from those who have crossed the same bridge without leaving something behind on an end from where you started from!