What does publish actually do?

[RichardWatson]

I create a tile package using ArcMap, upload it to ArcGIS Online, and then publish it:

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/arcgisonline/index.html#//010q000000v5000000

My question is why does it take so long to publish?  I ask that because it takes a while.  I could understand if it were generating the tiles but is it not.  ArcMap can view the tile package with this delay/

[DanielStauning · Accepted solution]

Richard,

What's happening is that the tiles are being unpacked and hosted as a web service, specifically a tiled map service; the process of unpacking the tiles and publishing the service can take some time. The advantage of this work flow is that the tiled map service can be consumed in web applications as opposed to just consuming the file based tile package in ArcMap.

This resource page discusses the work flow in more detail:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/arcgisonline/index.html#//010q000000v5000000

Hope this helps!

- Dan

[RichardHughes2]

Daniel,

During the unpacking, are there issues when using jp2 files as the source data going into a tile package?  Do you know if a tile package created from jp2 source data can be published in AGOL?