ArcGIS Enterprise supports various ways to publish data. By publishing data, you can make it available to other members of your ArcGIS Enterprise portal for use in maps and apps. The primary ways to publish content are from ArcGIS Pro, ArcMap, and the ArcGIS Enterprise portal. You also publish content as part of workflows in the portal or in ArcGIS apps. For example, the standard feature analysis tools in Map Viewer create feature layers to store results.
As a publisher, it is important to consider the functionality you want available for your web services and layers before you publish. Your needs may vary from service to service. It is also important to consider how you want people to use your services and where you want the data to be stored.
When you publish, you can copy the data to ArcGIS Enterprise—which results in hosted layers and data managed by ArcGIS—or you can reference data in its original location.
Publishing from ArcGIS Pro
ArcGIS Pro provides a full user experience and set of options for publishing. In ArcGIS Pro, you decide what functionality you want the web layer to have and this dictates the type of layer you publish. For details on publishing web layers, see Introduction to sharing web layers in the ArcGIS Pro help.
When you publish from ArcGIS Pro, you choose to copy all data or reference registered data. By copying all data when you publish a feature layer, ArcGIS takes a snapshot of your data and copies it to the relational ArcGIS Data Store, and creates a hosted feature layer item in the portal and a service on the portal's hosting ArcGIS Server site. When you copy all data when publishing a tile layer, ArcGIS takes a snapshot of your data and creates a cache on the portal's hosting ArcGIS Server site that populates a cached map service and a tile layer item in the portal. You can share your layer items to allow others to find and use them.
If you choose to publish using the option to reference registered data, your dat stays in place in your registered, user-managed data store and the service and layer item in the portal reference the data in the user-managed data source. Note you must register your data store with your federated ArcGIS Server site to publish a layer that references registered data.
Publishing directly from an ArcGIS Enterprise portal
You can also publish data from directly within the ArcGIS Enterprise portal interface. For example, open Content > My Content > Add Item > From my computer in your portal to publish all the layers in a file geodatabase as a hosted feature layer. See Publish hosted feature layers for more information on publishing from files you upload to your portal. You can also publish data as a byproduct of a workflow in your portal, such as running standard feature analysis tools in Map Viewer.
ArcGIS Enterprise 10.7.1 introduces a way of publishing registered data from your portal. Directly within the portal, you can bulk publish feature layers and map image layers and create imagery layers. This allows you to take data in folders, cloud storage locations, databases, and enterprise geodatabases and publish a large number of web layers without having to publish individual web layers from ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap.
Similar to publishing layers that reference registered data in ArcGIS Pro, you must register your data with your ArcGIS Server site before you publish. At 10.7.1, you can do this when you add a data store item in the ArcGIS Enterprise portal. The layers you publish from the data store item will reference the registered data, creating ArcGIS Server web service layers, not hosted layers.
Publishing from other applications
There are many other applications that allow you to publish data directly or that publish content as a byproduct of larger workflows. These applications all create hosted feature layers. Examples of such applications include ArcGIS Maps for Office, Workforce for ArcGIS, and GeoPlanner for ArcGIS. See Common clients of ArcGIS Enterprise for a list of additional apps that publish to ArcGIS Enterprise portals.
Data stores and ArcGIS Enterprise
For workflows that reference registered data, you must first register the data store with the ArcGIS Server sites that are federated with your ArcGIS Enterprise portal. You can do that by using one of the following methods:
- Register the data store using ArcGIS Server Manager for individual ArcGIS Server sites. Data stores registered using this method are available for all publishers with access to the site. This is the primary workflow that supports content published by reference from ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Desktop. This option has existed for a long time and is used for other, nonpublishing workflows such as defining big data file shares and raster stores and defining a location to store map or image service caches.
- Add a data store within the ArcGIS Enterprise portal. When you add a data store item to a portal, the portal registers your user-managed data source with the federated servers you specify. Data store items are shared using the portal sharing model and are not automatically accessible by anyone other than the owner unless explicitly shared. Data store items created in the portal support bulk publishing ArcGIS Server feature and map image layers from a database and publishing ArcGIS Image Server layers. The ability to add data stores through the portal is a new option introduced in ArcGIS Enterprise 10.7.1 and is only used for bulk publishing and imagery layer creation at this release.