The following sections define terms related to ArcGIS Data Store. Since ArcGIS Data Store is part of an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, additional terms are included here to clarify data stores in the overall context of ArcGIS Enterprise.
ArcGIS Data Store
ArcGIS Data Store is the software component that allows you to configure data stores for your portal's hosted feature layers, hosted scene layers, and spatiotemporal feature layers.
Note that data store is a general term for any location where data is stored. ArcGIS Data Store allows you to configure a subset of data store types. The data stores you configure with ArcGIS Data Store are always used as part of an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, are managed by ArcGIS, and are registered with your portal's hosting server.
ArcGIS Data Store account
On Microsoft Windows machines, the ArcGIS Data Store account is the login under which your ArcGIS Data Store service runs. You specify this account when you install ArcGIS Data Store.
On Linux machines, the ArcGIS Data Store account is the account you used to sign in to the machine when you installed ArcGIS Data Store.
See ArcGIS Data Store account for more information.
ArcGIS Data Store configuration store
The ArcGIS Data Store configuration store maintains information about the ArcGIS GIS Server site to which it is registered, the other machines in the data store, and properties of the data store.
Each type of ArcGIS Data Store has its own configuration store in which it maintains the information specific to it. For example, if your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment has a relational data store, a tile cache data store, and a spatiotemporal big data store, your deployment has three ArcGIS Data Store configuration stores.
ArcGIS Data Store content directory
This is a directory you specify to store the files ArcGIS Data Store needs to run. This directory must be local to the ArcGIS Data Store installation.
This directory initially stores backup files for relational data stores, but once you create a relational data store, you should configure it to create backup files in a shared network location instead.
ArcGIS Enterprise
ArcGIS Enterprise is the product line that allows you to create a Web GIS. It includes ArcGIS Server, Portal for ArcGIS, ArcGIS Data Store, and ArcGIS Web Adaptor.
See What is ArcGIS Enterprise? for more information.
ArcGIS GeoEvent Server
ArcGIS Server sites are licensed to fill specific roles. An ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site is a stand-alone or federated server site that allows you to stream real-time data.
In the context of ArcGIS Data Store, a federated ArcGIS GeoEvent Server can archive data from stream services into a feature layer that runs on the portal's hosting server. The archived data is stored in a spatiotemporal big data store. Note that when you delete the archiving feature layer from the portal, the feature service is not deleted and neither is the data stored in the spatiotemporal big data store.
See Manage spatiotemporal big data stores in the GeoEvent Server help for more information on archiving streamed data.
ArcGIS GIS Server
(ArcGIS GIS Server is also called GIS Server.)
ArcGIS Server sites are licensed to fill specific roles. An ArcGIS GIS Server site allows you to serve such GIS resources as map services, feature services, geoprocessing services (tools), geocoding services (locators), and geodata services.
A portal's hosting server must be licensed as an ArcGIS GIS Server site to publish the types of services that hosted web layers require.
ArcGIS Image Server
ArcGIS Server sites are licensed to fill specific roles. An ArcGIS Image Server site is a stand-alone or federated server site that allows you to serve cached or dynamic image services.
In the context of ArcGIS Data Store, the ArcGIS Enterprise deployment with which you are using ArcGIS Data Store must have a federated ArcGIS Image Server site if you want to publish hosted image layers to the portal.
You can have multiple federated ArcGIS Image Server sites that fill different roles, such as the portal's raster analysis server or image hosting server.
ArcGIS Knowledge Server
Knowledge graphs created in ArcGIS Pro run on an ArcGIS Knowledge Server site that is federated with the ArcGIS Enterprise deployment.
See Get started with ArcGIS Knowledge Server for more information.
ArcGIS Video Server
Adding a federated ArcGIS Video Server site to ArcGIS Enterprise allows you to stream web-enabled video services, and a video layer item is created in the ArcGIS Enterprise portal. The ArcGIS Video Server site administrator configures storage for the video layer content: either on disk (the default) or in the ArcGIS Data Store object store.
See ArcGIS Video Server for more information.
data store
In the context of ArcGIS, a data store is any location where you keep the data used by ArcGIS.
In the specific context of ArcGIS Server, data stores are the file, database, geodatabase, or cloud storage locations you register with an ArcGIS Server site. Registering these locations with the ArcGIS Server site ensures the services you publish can access the data.
User-maintained data stores registered with ArcGIS Server point to your data source; the data is maintained in that data store and is not copied anywhere else. When a service is published to the ArcGIS Server site, the data that populates the service comes from this registered source data.
Data stores implemented through ArcGIS Data Store are also registered with ArcGIS Server (specifically, with the hosting server), but they are maintained by ArcGIS and the data is only accessible through the web layer. When you publish certain hosted web layers, ArcGIS copies data into one of these data stores.
Note that web layers in an ArcGIS Enterprise portal are services that run on an ArcGIS Server site. If the data is copied to the data store when the service is published, the resultant web layer in the portal is a hosted web layer. For more information, see Services and portal items.
federated server
A federated server is an ArcGIS Server site you have integrated into your portal. Federated servers share authentication with the rest of the ArcGIS Enterprise deployment and allow you to automatically create items in the portal for the services you publish to the federated server.
See Integrate your portal with ArcGIS Server for more information.
GIS Server
See the ArcGIS GIS Server entry above.
graph store
A graph store is the database that the portal's ArcGIS Knowledge Server uses to store the entities and relationships that compose a knowledge graph. The knowledge graph services that run on the ArcGIS Knowledge Server site access the data in the graph store.
The ArcGIS Data Store graph store contains system information related to knowledge graphs as well as the entities and relationships defined for hosted knowledge graphs. Even if you register a NoSQL database data store that references data in a supported graph store, you must have an ArcGIS Data Store graph store in the ArcGIS Enterprise deployment to hold system information that ArcGIS Knowledge Server requires.
Even though the services run on the ArcGIS Knowledge Server site, you register the ArcGIS Data Store graph store with the portal's hosting server because all communication for hosted layers and communication related to system information runs through the hosting server site.
The ArcGIS Data Store graph store requires large amounts of memory and disk space. Configure it on a machine or machines separate from other data stores.
See Apps and functionality that require ArcGIS Data Store for information about when you need to create an ArcGIS Data Store graph store.
hosted web layers
Hosted web layers are items in your portal that have corresponding services running on the portal's hosting server. The one exception is hosted image layers; they run on a federated ArcGIS Image Server site rather than your hosting server.
Tip:
When the owner of the layer or the organization administrator opens the layer item's page in the portal, (hosted) is included in the layer type label on the Overview tab. When viewed in ArcGIS Pro, hosted layers are labeled as such when you view them in the Catalog pane or window.
The data that populates most of these services and, therefore, populates the hosted web layers is copied to ArcGIS Data Store when you publish. Hosted web layers require you to create a specific type of data store to hold this data. See the table in Create the portal and ArcGIS Server sites used with ArcGIS Data Store to determine which type of data store you need for each type of hosted web layer. Hosted image layer data is copied to a registered file or cloud storage data store, not a data store created through ArcGIS Data Store.
When you delete a hosted web layer from your portal, the service is deleted from the ArcGIS Server site, and the data is deleted from the data store.
For more information on hosted web layers, see Services and portal items and Hosted layers.
hosting server
A hosting server is the GIS Server site that the organization administrator federates with an ArcGIS Enterprise portal and sets as the server to host web layers.
See Integrate your portal with ArcGIS Server for more information.
location tracking service
This is a feature service that records the location of mobile users. The data that populates the location tracking service can be stored in the spatiotemporal big data store.
object store
An object store holds all of the following:
- Caches for hosted scene layers—Starting with 11.4, publishing hosted scene layers requires an object store for the layer's caches.
- Caches for hosted 3D tiles layers—When members of the ArcGIS Enterprise organization publish hosted 3D tiles layers, caches are copied into the object store.
- Videos for a federated ArcGIS Video Server site—To store videos, the ArcGIS Video Server site administrator configures the object store as the default storage location for video services.
- Cached query responses for hosted feature layers—To improve drawing performance, the ArcGIS Server site administrator of the hosting server can use the Update Definition REST operation to enable query response caching on individual layers in a hosted feature layer from the feature service REST endpoint in the ArcGIS Server Administrator Directory.
An ArcGIS Data Store object store can contain one machine or, if you require more than one machine in the object store for high availability, deploy it in cluster mode.
The ArcGIS Data Store object store requires large amounts of disk space and memory. Configure it on a machine or machines separate from other data stores.
If you deploy ArcGIS Enterprise in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure cloud, you can configure an object store that uses cloud storage services offered by those platforms. See one of the following for information: Register Data Item to use JSON and REST API or DataStoreManager to use ArcGIS API for Python.
Note:
Only one object store is supported per ArcGIS Enterprise deployment; it can be provided through ArcGIS Data Store or, if ArcGIS Enterprise is running in the AWS or Azure cloud, it can be provided by Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) or Azure Blob Storage, respectively.
relational data store
A relational data store is the database that your ArcGIS Enterprise portal's hosting server uses to store the data for hosted feature layers 
. The hosting server must be configured with a relational data store before the organization administrator can add the hosting server to the portal.
spatiotemporal big data store
A spatiotemporal big data store is a distributed, scalable storage structure with full-text search capabilities. It allows you to store data that includes space and time components.
The spatiotemporal big data store requires large amounts of disk space and memory. Configure it on a machine or machines separate from other data stores.
See Apps and functionality that require ArcGIS Data Store for more information about when you need a spatiotemporal big data store.
tile cache data store
A tile cache data store is a set of databases that store caches for hosted scene layers that were published to ArcGIS Enterprise 11.3 or earlier. One database was created for each hosted scene layer.
Starting with ArcGIS Data Store 11.4, caches for newly published hosted scene layers are stored in the object store. Although hosted scene layers with caches stored in the tile cache data store will continue to function, it is recommended that you migrate hosted scene layer caches to the object store after you upgrade.