Introducing the GIS Enterprise Reporter

[DannyKrouk]

A common challenge in administering an ArcGIS Enterprise system is the need document and/or otherwise communicate its design and configuration. 

Typically, this is done by someone creating one or more diagrams.  These diagrams sometimes have errors and/or omissions.  And, they easily lose their relevance as the system changes.  The underlying challenge is that the documentation of the system is not generated by the system itself, it reflects the understanding of one person at one moment in time.

GIS Enterprise Reporter is designed to help address this challenge by automating the creation of documentation artifacts.  Point the tool at your ArcGIS Enterprise, with administrative credentials, and it will generate documentation that includes:

1. A logical diagram
2. Listings of administrative/configuration settings (from the REST admin API's)
3. Listings of machine resources and installed software (for the machines running the software in the ArcGIS Enterprise system)
4. ArcGIS Server service inventories (inclusive of workspaces and datasets)
5. Portal content inventory
6. Portal users and groups inventory
7. And, information about TLS/SSL certificates (including certificate expirations, required trust chains, etc.)

The documentation is output in Microsoft Excel format, making it easy to share, analyze, and mark-up.

This tool is intended to be used by ArcGIS Enterprise administrators to understand and document their system deployments.  It works best if it is run under a credential that is also a local machine administrator, but that is not required.

Please note that this tool is not a product of Esri.  It is a tool produced by an employee of Esri and made broadly available in the hopes that it will be useful.  It is provided "as is".

You can download the tool here: https://github.com/dannykrouk/gisenterprisereporter.  The .zip contains both the executable and documentation.  The executable is a ".Net Core" executable that should run on any contemporary Windows operating system. 

The executable is signed with a certificate that is not issued by a public certificate authority.  So, you may get warnings (or limits) from your operating system related to that.  If so, please follow the guidelines of your organization and the privileges extended to you by working with the appropriate IT security authorities, importing the certificate into a your trust repository, or using elevated privileges to execute the tool.

Please be in contact with me, Danny Krouk (dkrouk@esri.com) with questions or enhancement ideas.

This article is intended to be the first in a short series of articles about GIS Enterprise Reporter.  Future articles will address topics such as running the tool, interpreting its output, and creating useful analyses from the output.

Next Series Article: Running the GIS Enterprise Reporter, Tips & Tricks