ArcGIS enterprise on cloud

[yockee]

Hi,

I am in the middle of migration from VM hosted on-premise to Cloud. There are 2 cloud candidates that we are considering: AWS and GCP. We are considering clouds because we are under assumption that the geodatabase has to be placed on a shared drive / clouds to enable multiuser concurrent editing. I have read here that there are some kind of "limitation" on performance about geodatabase on cloud. 

We want to place the enterprise geodatabase on cloud (either AWS or GCP, depending on the suitability and price) and then access it from local client. The editing of data are pretty simple: no versioning required, no replication, some topology, geometric network, simple cross section analysis and joins with another data source from local database will be involved. And the rest is pretty much straight forward, simple editing of object and attributes. The size of the whole geodatabase is not big, merely 30 GB - 50 GB max. The editor personnel are only 5 - 7 people maximum.

Now, this is what I want to propose based on our need:

- ArcMAP 10.8.2 (which will be discontinued in 2 years time). This is because I do not really need enterprise geodatabase. The concurrent multiuser editing can be done by running some trickeries like here.

But, due to licensing limitation / policy from Esri, may be I am forced to propose this:

- ArcGIS Pro with named licensing (this requires Portal)

- ArcGIS Server Standard (because the named licensing requires Portal)

I want to avoid using ArcGIS Server Standard because at the moment we don't need it. May be sometimes in 2 years we will need it. And I do not need Cloud as well because I just can use file geodatabase on shared folder. the FGDB is suffice enough to cover our needs.

Any suggestion about which recommendation I should follow ? Is my proposal about using ArcMap only good enough ?
Personally, considering our needs, I want to avoid using cloud and I do not need ArcGIS Enterprise Standard.

Any comments or recommendations are welcome.
Thanks.

[George_Thompson]

There are a few things I noticed and comments about them:

If you move an Enterprise Geodatabase to the cloud, I would HIGHLY recommend that you put the ArcGIS clients in the cloud also. In the link you reference in your first paragraph it states this in the note.

If you just need an Enterprise Geodatabase (EGDB), you can get ArcGIS Server Basic which will allow you to enable the EGDB. The limitations with Server Basic are on the publishing to server, not EGDB (as I understand it). The big item will be to have ArcGIS client with Standard / Advanced license for creation / editing the of the EGDB.

I am not sure I would trust that "trickery" to work and risk corruption and / or data loss.

Questions:

- Why are you looking at cloud if you say "And I do not need Cloud as well because I just can use file geodatabase on shared folder. the FGDB is suffice enough to cover our needs."?

- Is your organization trying to save money on storage?

Based on what you have provided, I would say just stay in the current model. I do not see a benefit to move to the cloud. I could be missing something so please let me know.

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[yockee]

Hi George,

Questions:

- Why are you looking at cloud if you say "And I do not need Cloud as well because I just can use file geodatabase on shared folder. the FGDB is suffice enough to cover our needs."?  --> I was advised by the IT team that now we will be using cloud. I am aware the consequences if the arcgis geodb is put on cloud, notably the performance drawbacks. But I am going to use this pattern: put the db on cloud, and download it on to the local client for editing. Then put it back again to cloud. Make sense ? Or maybe, I can use two-way-replication between cloud egdb and local egdb (or may be even one way replication with the local egdb acting as primary). Is it worth trying ? Any other consideration ?

- Is your organization trying to save money on storage? --> I might say "yes". 

thanks for the advice

[George_Thompson · Accepted solution]

This comment ".. But I am going to use this pattern: put the db on cloud, and download it on to the local client for editing. Then put it back again to cloud..." is going to create a bit of additional overhead for Enterprise Geodatabase (EGDB) management.

I am guessing that you will create local replica's of the data needed then sync back nightly?

If so, you will need to make sure that you reconcile / post / compress, remove old replicated data to keep the EGDB performing its best.

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/geodatabases/overview/recommended-version-adminis...

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/geodatabases/overview/replication-and-versioning....

Hope this helps!