Using ArcPro while upgrading portal with name user licensing

[MBocek]

Hey all!

Does anyone have experience with upgrading their portal after switching to named user licenses? We just upgraded from 11.4 to 115. with named users for the first time. Because the licenses are tied to the portal, Pro would be down for the upgrade time. Our first instinct was to have users checkout an offline copy. However, after upgrading, this is the error message users who check out a license got, and we have to manually release the offline licenses:

Taking licenses online is also not recommended by ESRI:

“Before upgrading Portal for ArcGIS, you must ensure all offline ArcGIS Pro licenses are checked in by your organization members. You can view License activity to see which members have checked out their ArcGIS Pro license for offline use. For information about how to check in an offline license, see Check in an offline license.”

Upgrade Portal for ArcGIS—ArcGIS Enterprise | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

Is there a way for users to continue using pro while upgrading? We would like a solution that doesn't require us upgrading after hours or preventing users from using ArcPro.

Thanks!

[CodyPatterson]

Hey @MBocek 

Are your users using an Enterprise Geodatabase to manage their datasets, or over Feature Services via the portal? If they're using an EGDB, then they would be able to continue their work. On the other hand, Feature Services would be down for the length of the upgrade.

It may not be best practice, but I've moved from 11.1-11.2-11.3-12.0 and I've not taken my licenses offline at all for any of these upgrades, if there's a map that needs to be edited or maintained, the user would typically have a syncing process once the upgrade is completed, and sync their maps over. In our case it was really only 1-2 out of the 200 that utilize it, so we typically just bit the bullet and upgraded during the slowest times which only stopped a few users.

Cody

[MBocek]

We are aware that some feature services will be unavailable during upgrades. However, it would be nice if those connecting to personal geodatabases or enterprise SDEs could still work in Pro.

The issue is that users cannot access Pro at all when the portal is offline for names user licensing, as that is where the authorization to use Pro is stored.. Did you use named licensing as well?

[Joshua-Young]

I believe the only way to accomplish having your ArcGIS Pro licenses stay available the entire time of an ArcGIS Enterprise upgrade is to set up a high availability or replicated environment. I do not have the hardware for that, so my upgrades happen after hours.

Here is Esri's documentation on high availability and replicated environments for upgrades.
https://enterprise.arcgis.com/en/portal/11.5/administer/windows/upgrade-a-highly-available-portal.ht... 

[MBocek]

That seems to be the best solution I've seen. It's unfortunate that it requires so much additional hardware and extra management on our end. We've put in a lot of time switching to named users, and it only seems to be adding more responsibilities to our GIS team. I suspect we would need to upgrade after hours as well to allow user to access Pro. But thank you for the response! I'll try to lobby for more resources on our end.

[SimonSchütte_ct]

@Joshua-Young ArcGIS Pro license failover with new Named User li... - Esri Community