You can create backups of your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment using the Web GIS Disaster Recovery (WebGISDR) tool and restore the most recent backup in the event of a failure or corruption. This allows you to recover the portal items, services, and data that existed at the time you created the backup.
The WebGISDR utility is installed to <Portal for ArcGIS installation directory>/tools/webgisdr.
Restoring backups to recover your deployment is a good option if your users will accept some amount of downtime and possible data loss, and your organization does not have the infrastructure or resources to devote to a highly available deployment.
You can also keep backups even if you implement other disaster recovery strategies. They provide extra insurance that you can recover your deployment if your primary strategy fails.
For example, if you maintain a replicated deployment and both your primary and replicated deployments fail at the same time (perhaps they were both housed in a building that lost power), you still have a backup you can restore.
See Backup and restore best practices for more information.
What's included in the backup
Use the WebGISDR utility to export backup files of the following components of your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment:
- Your portal items and settings
- GIS services and settings
- Service webhooks
- The relational data store and tile cache data store
You can create incremental backups between full backups to reduce the total backup size. See Backup modes for more information on the differences between full and incremental backups.
The backup created with the WebGISDR utility does not include the following:
- Map service cache tiles and hosted tile layer caches—If you have either of these, make a backup copy of all directories where your cache tiles are stored (for example, the entire arcgiscache directory under C:\arcgisserver\directories\ or <ArcGIS Server installation directory>/arcgis/server/usr/directories). These directories contain the cache tiles and the tiling scheme file conf.xml. The cache directories may also contain a file geodatabase, status.gdb, which contains information about what tiles have been built. When you restore the site, move or copy the information back to the original arcgiscache directory.
- Referenced data sources for web services—For file-based data sources, you need to make backup copies of those files. For data stored in a database, use the tools of your database management system to create database backups.
- Spatiotemporal big data store, graph store, and object store backups—If you have any of these ArcGIS Data Store types registered with the hosting server, create backups of each using the ArcGIS Data Store backupdatastore utility.
- Federated ArcGIS Mission Server or ArcGIS Notebook Server sites—If you have either of these, create backups by following the instructions in the ArcGIS Mission Server documentation and the ArcGIS Notebook Server documentation. To restore them using the WebGISDR utility, follow the instructions in Restore ArcGIS Enterprise.
- ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site configuration—Follow the instructions in the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server documentation to create a backup of it.
Note:
To create incremental backups with the WebGISDR utility, you must enable point-in-time recovery, or the utility will fail.
Also note that the WebGISDR utility must have access to at least one of the machines in each federated server site through the ArcGIS Server Administrator Directory URL and the primary data store to succeed. To determine whether the URL is accessible, open the ArcGIS Server Administrator Directory from a browser on the machine where you will run the WebGISDR utility.
Since 10.4, the list of items and settings that must be identical across your source and target deployments when running the WebGISDR utility has been shortened. The following table summarizes these changes across recent versions of Portal for ArcGIS and ArcGIS Server:
Must this item or setting be identical across deployments when running the WebGISDR utility?
| Item or setting | 10.4.x | 10.5.x, 10.6 | 10.6.1 and later |
|---|---|---|---|
Version | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Public portal URLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Services URL for federated servers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Registered data stores other than ArcGIS Data Store | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Account credentials for the ...webgisdr.properties file | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Portal content directory storage type | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ArcGIS Server directory paths (for example, arcgisjobs) | Yes | Yes | No |
Security information (LDAP URLs, proxy information) | Yes | Yes | No |
Deployment type (single machine or highly available) | Yes | No | No |
Private portal URL | Yes | No | No |
Admin URL for federated servers | Yes | No | No |
Machine names | Yes | No | No |
Portal content directory path (if using the file system) | No | No | No |
Portal content directory credentials (if using cloud storage) | No | No | No |
ArcGIS Server configuration store | No | No | No |
Backup modes
You can create different types of backups with the WebGISDR tool using the following backup modes:
Backup
Introduced at 10.9, the backup mode is intended to back up the state of the organization, including the portal content, published services, the relational data store, and the tile cache data store if you specified it in the properties file. This also includes any data store references registered as portal items or directly through the ArcGIS Server Manager. You cannot use backup mode to back up any of your referenced data unless the data was copied to the site as part of the publishing process.
Full
The full mode works similarly to the backup mode and includes the same content. It is intended to facilitate a combined full and incremental backup schedule and remove the transaction log limit to allow for incremental backup and recovery. If you decide not to use incremental mode as part of your backup strategy, you must use backup mode instead.
Incremental
The incremental mode contains a collection of changes that occurred since the last full backup. It is especially useful in geographic replication, where shorter backup and restore times are advantageous for keeping the deployments in close synchronization. The incremental mode backup file only includes changes to the portal content, published services, data copied to the federated server sites, the relational data store, and the tile cache data store if you specified it in the properties file. If a new data store is registered with the ArcGIS Server site or an existing connecting string is updated, a backup using the full mode and a subsequent restore is required before you can continue with replication using the incremental mode.
Note:
To create or restore incremental backups, ArcGIS Data Store must be configured to automatically create backups of relational data stores.
Runtime arguments
When creating or restoring an ArcGIS Enterprise backup, you will need to update parameters from the command shell on the Portal for ArcGIS machine. The syntax for the WebGISDR tool run on Microsoft Windows machines is as follows:
webgisdr.bat --{export | import | configuration} --file <properties file location> [--output <output file location>]The syntax to run the tool on Linux machines is the same except the utility is a .sh file instead of a .bat file.
For information on these parameters, see the following:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
-e or --export | Creates a backup of the existing organization. |
- i or --import | Imports an existing backup to the connected organization. For more information, see Restore ArcGIS Enterprise. |
-c or --configuration | Checks the connected organization's configuration and outputs the federated components including the portal, server sites, and relational and tile cache data stores. |
-f or --file | Contains the connection details for the organization as well as backup and restore-specific information. For more information, see WebGISDR tool properties file. |
(Optional) -o or --output | Creates an output file that can be parsed to help automate validation of successful backups and restores or for administrator review. For more information, see WebGISDR tool output file. |
Networking requirements
For the WebGISDR tool to function, it needs access to specific URLs that are part of your deployment and connect directly to the component that is being backed up. Depending on your configuration, they may not match the URLs used to configure the ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, such as the privatePortalURL property in the portal, or the URLs used to federate the portal and server.
Review the following to understand the requests the WebGISDR tool makes so you can ensure that the necessary URLs are accessible for each component:
- Portal for ArcGIS—The tool uses the PORTAL_ADMIN_URL property to connect to the portal to determine the primary portal machine name. The backup or restore operation uses the machine identified. If Portal for ArcGIS is running on a machine with the fully qualified domain name portal.domain.com, ensure that the tool can reach https://portal.domain.com:7443/arcgis. This also applies to any other Portal for ArcGIS machines if the deployment is highly available.
- ArcGIS Server—The PORTAL_ADMIN_URL property also is used to determine the admin URLs for federated servers. The tool uses these admin URLs to find a machine that is accessible and available, so ensure that at least one ArcGIS Server machine in each federated server site is accessible. If ArcGIS Server is running on a machine with the fully qualified domain name server.domain.com, the tool must be able to reach https://server.domain.com:6443/arcgis. This also applies to any other machine that's part of that site.
- ArcGIS Data Store—The tool also uses the admin URLs to find the primary relational and optional tile cache data store. Ensure that any ArcGIS Data Store machine registered to the hosting server site is accessible. If ArcGIS Data Store is running on a machine with the fully qualified domain name datastore.domain.com, the WebGISDR tool must be able to reach https://datastore.domain.com:2443/arcgis.