Latest Contributions by jill_es

Get excited - the focus of this edition of This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Enterprise is migrations.  Now the word "migration" can be ambiguous, as it's thrown around in a variety of contexts: migrating from on-premise to the cloud, migrating from 10.5.1 to 10.7.1, migrating from one form of WebGIS deployment strategy to another, etc.  Those are all valid examples of migration, but they are not the only examples of migration. To clear up any confusion, the focus of this blog is two types of migration: migrating from ArcGIS Server to ArcGIS Enterprise and migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine.  Now that we're all on the same page, we're going to be going through these two types of migrations by covering: 1. Migrating to ArcGIS Enterprise 2. Migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine, using the Join Site operation 3. Migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine, using the WebGIS DR tool 1. Migrating to ArcGIS Enterprise This comprehensive video from Esri Australia provides a great list of considerations when making the move to ArcGIS Enterprise from another type of WebGIS deployment, such as a standalone ArcGIS Server site.  The considerations they bring to light include thinking about your hardware if the cloud should be used, potential monitoring and backups, the need for SSL certificates, and more.  This is a great resource for anybody looking to migrate to ArcGIS Enterprise or explore a deployment’s capabilities.  Take a look for yourself here.   2. Migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine, using the Join Site operation This blog is a wonderful resource for those already using ArcGIS Enterprise and wanting to move their deployment to another machine (this could be due to the new machine having more available resources or a newer operating system).  There are many different choices you can choose when migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine.  This blog covers the use of the Join Site operation, typically used to add standby machines for highly available deployments and disaster recovery workflows.  Outlining the steps of this migration workflow, including sections specific to each ArcGIS Enterprise component, this blog is a must-read for anybody looking to migrate their ArcGIS Enterprise site using the Join Site operation.  Read more here in this blog. 3. Migrating ArcGIS Enterprise to a new machine, using the WebGIS DR tool Building on what was discussed in the previous blog, this blog covers a second option for migrating your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment to another machine: the WebGIS DR tool. While this utility exists to create and restore backups and maintain a replicated standby environment for disaster recovery, it can also be used to migrate our ArcGIS Enterprise environments. While more complicated than the Join Site operation discussed in the previous blog, this WebGIS DR tool has the option for you to validate whether the migration was successful before switching to the new environment.  For more details on this workflow, as well as pros and cons, take a look at this blog here.   With that, hopefully, you are feeling more confident about migrating to ArcGIS Enterprise and migrating ArcGIS Enterprise deployments to different machines.  As always, thank you for reading and please feel free to reach out in the comments below   if there are any outstanding questions or comments.  Be sure to check out This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro - and stay tuned for more This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Enterprise. ... View more

Happy New Year, fellow ArcGIS Enterprise aficionados!  Moving into a new year, and a new decade, the subject of time has been on my mind… Of course, thinking about how much has changed in the past ten years.  And traveling for the holidays made me think a lot about time zones.  And this led me to think about web maps and time in ArcGIS Enterprise.  Seriously.  I'm a self-proclaimed geography nerd, I love this stuff.   Time in ArcGIS Enterprise is a bit of mystery, even for those who consider us who consider ourselves familiar with the product.  With that in mind, let's remove the mystery and focus on time in ArcGIS Enterprise for the first edition of This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Enterprise in 2020.  We'll be covering: Date and Time in ArcGIS Online (and ArcGIS Enterprise!) Visualizing time in your web maps with Arcade How to set your web service to use a specific time zone instead of UTC    1. Date and Time in ArcGIS Online (and ArcGIS Enterprise!) This video by my fellow Product Advocacy Lead, Peter Klingman, is an awesome two-minute crash course on time zones, UTC and Unix time, and how this all works with ArcGIS Online. And don't let the name of this video deter you, though ArcGIS Online is the only product mentioned, the same principles apply to ArcGIS Enterprise.  By the end of this video, you'll be able to answer why the time in your web map in California is different than the time for your buddy viewing the same web map in across the world in Germany.  Take a moment and watch it for yourself here. 2. Visualizing time in your web maps with Arcade Now you now understand how time works in ArcGIS Enterprise; you know that all dates are recorded and returned in UTC.  But even with that information in mind, sometimes that's not enough and you need the time in your web map to display a specific way, reflecting a particular time zone.  With that in mind, Arcade can be your best friend and help you convey the information you need to in your web maps.  Take a look at this blog, which goes into use cases and workflows to make this happen. 3. How to set your web service to use a specific time zone instead of UTC This whole time we've been talking about time in ArcGIS Enterprise, with principles that apply to ArcGIS Online as well. When navigating time, using Arcade within your web map may not be enough, maybe you want to set some rules on the web service itself.  And this is where ArcGIS Enterprise offers you more time capabilities: you can set your web service to use a specific time zone instead of UTC.  This can be done by specifying the time zone used in the database or through ArcGIS Server.  This technical article goes into detail about changing these properties for the web service itself, always displaying the results in the desired time zone instead of UTC.   And with that, hopefully, time in ArcGIS Enterprise has been demystified for you!  Thank you for reading and, as always, please feel free to reach out in the comments below   if there are any outstanding questions.  Be sure to check out This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro - and stay tuned for more This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Enterprise. ... View more

Welcome to the final edition of This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Enterprise for 2019!   Setting up your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment is a potentially daunting task.  Even if you already have ArcGIS Enterprise up and running, there are some considerations to keep everything running smoothly.  But that too can be a daunting task…  What's an ArcGIS Enterprise administrator to do?   Get some deployment strategies up your sleeve, that's what!  To do this, let's set ourselves up with those deployment strategies by covering the following topics: Architecting Your Deployment Designing Your ArcGIS Backup Strategy Backing Up Your ArcGIS Data Store + Disk Space 1. Architecting Your Deployment This whitepaper is a resource that breaks down all the factors to consider when setting up your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment.  It doesn't just cover the technical details but factors specific to your organization: What capabilities do you require?  How many users do you have?  What is your service-level agreement?  Scaling, expanding upon the typical base deployment, and highly available deployments are defined and discussed in order to guide you towards the best decision for you and organization.   And, lastly, you'll find the best piece of advice that any good Enterprise administrator (or Hitchhikers fan) knows: don't panic.  Check it out for yourself here.    2. Designing Your ArcGIS Backup Strategy Once ArcGIS Enterprise is deployed to meet your organization's needs, that's it - right?  Not so fast.  This blog covers the other half of the deployment strategy: designing your ArcGIS backup plan.  There are many reasons to backup your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment: power loss, machine crash, natural disaster, etc.  Life can sometimes be unpredictable.  And while there are quite a few ways one could possibly go about a backup plan, the WebGIS DR tool is the Esri backup solution.  This blog covers what this ArcGIS Enterprise tool does as well as what to consider when backing up your environment.  Take a look at this blog for more information. 3. Backing Up Your ArcGIS Data Store + Disk Space As mentioned in the previous blog, disk space is something to consider when evaluating your backup strategy. Depending on your strategy, you may need to be cognizant of the disk space associated with your ArcGIS Data Store.  If running out of space, this Support technical article covers how to change the backup frequency for something that works for your organization.  A second thing to consider is the backup location, which may need to be changed - this is elaborated on further in this related technical article.   And now you have some of the deployment strategies to keep up your sleeve!  Please feel free to reach out in the comments below   if there are any outstanding questions. As always, thanks for reading!  Be sure to check out This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro - and stay tuned for more This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Enterprise.  Have yourself a happy holiday season, Enterprise friends! ... View more