Accessing Geodatabases in AWS instances directly from on-prem ArcGIS clients

[HenokA]

We are accessing AWS RDS for postgres/postgis geodatabases in AWS instances directly from on-premise ArcGIS clients. While the ArcGIS clients on-premise do access the AWS geotabases instances, there appears to be frequent disconnection with the AWS server. This happens especially when we are adding multiple layers in ArcMap or do some tasks. Is there any way to handle this issue? 

Esri's documentation says " Geodatabases in AWS instances are not intended to be accessed directly from on-premises ArcGIS clien....". But it says it would only slow down connectivity between ArcGIS client (on-prem) with the AWS databases instances.  

Has anyone experienced this issue? Any insights as to why we are having frequent disconnection is much appreciated.

Thank you,

Henok

[George_Thompson]

I do not have direct experience, but would ask the following:

- Does the disconnect happen after a certain time frame, i.e. 15 min.?

- Maybe the network is being overloaded with the amount of data / traffic being requested by the ArcGIS client?

- Can you install ArcMap in a machine in the same region as the Postgres DB and test to see if the same behavior happens?

[HenokA]

George,

I just timed it and got disconnected after about 6 minutes. And connection can be re-established by closing the ArcGIS client, restart ArcMap and connect to AWS-database again.

The frequent disconnection from AWS server appears to occur only from on-prem ArcGIS client - not from PgAdmin4. So is it possible that a heavy network traffic affect only on-prem ArcGIS clients, and not PgAdmin4?

Unfortunately, we do not have ArcMap or ArcGIS Server AWS instances at this point. So can not try it from the same platform.

Thanks for the thoughts,

Henok

[George_Thompson]

Querying the data in PG admin will not have the same effect as the ArcGIS client.

Do you know if your network team has a limit on the amount of traffic allowed per connection? I have seen this in the past, the network was limited to "x" # of request before it caused issues.

This one may be a difficult one to track down due to the network component.

Are other users having the same issues or only your machine?

[HenokA]

Yes, other people with different machine accessing the same geodatabase are experiencing similar problem.

Will check with the network team about the possible cause of this problem - and will update this thread with the results. 

Thanks.

[HenokA]

Following up, the issue has been addressed after the Network Team made some modifications to the setup. Now there is excellent connectivity bwn on-prem ArcGIS clients and AWS RDS postgres geodatabases. Thanks.

[AndrewThePrivateSectorDrone]

Hey @HenokA , could you share what your IT changed? We are seeing abysmal performance from our AWS RDS (PostGreSQL with PostGIS configured as an Enterprise Geodatabase). 

[XuanUSAC]

Hi @HenokAlemu 

How about the performance on your desktop ArcGIS Pro to handle the data from the geodatabase hosted on AWS? As you mentioned in the first message, "Geodatabases in AWS are not intended to be accessed directly from on-premises ArcGIS clients, as performance will be far slower than when the geodatabases are accessed from ArcGIS clients on AWS." Could you please share your experience and observation on the performance issues in Pro?

Thanks,

Xuan

[HenokA]

Hi Xuan,

It's working well & smooth so far. Enterprise geodatabases are hosted on AWS/Aurora PostGIS  and accessibility & functionality has been smooth. Thanks.