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Configure a hosting server

Configure a relational data store with one of your federated GIS Server sites and set that site as the hosting server for your ArcGIS Enterprise portal to allow members to do the following:

  • Publish hosted layers.
  • Share layers and maps from ArcGIS Maps for Office.
  • Add a zipped shapefile, CSV file, or GPS Exchange Format file to the map viewer.
  • Batch geocode addresses from a CSV file or table.
  • Perform feature analysis in the map viewer, Insights for ArcGIS, or ArcGIS Pro.
  • Perform raster analysis from the map viewer or ArcGIS Pro.
License:

To designate a GIS Server site as a hosting server, the site must be licensed as an ArcGIS GIS Server site at the Standard or Advanced edition. See What is ArcGIS GIS Server? for licensing details.

Configure a data store

Hosting servers need a way to store data for the hosted layers published to ArcGIS Enterprise. At a minimum, you must configure the hosting server to store hosted feature layer data. You can either install ArcGIS Data Store and create a relational data store registered with your GIS Server, or you can create an enterprise geodatabase and register it as the GIS Server site's managed database. When users publish hosted feature layers to your portal, the data is copied to the data store you have registered.

Legacy:

ArcGIS Enterprise 10.5.1 is the last release that will allow the use of an enterprise geodatabase as the managed database for a hosting server. If you are configuring a new hosting server, use a relational data store.

Use ArcGIS Data Store

ArcGIS Data Store is a separate installation available with ArcGIS Enterprise that lets you create and maintain the following data stores for hosted web layers you publish to an ArcGIS Enterprise portal:

  • Relational data store—Stores your portal's hosted feature layer data, including hosted feature layers created as output from spatial analysis tools run in the portal
  • Tile cache data store—Stores caches for your portal's hosted scene layers
  • Spatiotemporal big data store—Archives real-time observational data that you can use with an ArcGIS Server running ArcGIS GeoEvent Server that is federated with your portal; also stores the results generated using ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server tools.

At minimum, the GIS Server site you use as a hosting server must be configured with a relational data store. See An overview of ArcGIS Data Store configuration and its related topics for instructions on installing ArcGIS Data Store and creating a relational data store.

Tip:

See Apps and functionality that require ArcGIS Data Store to help determine which additional types of data stores you need.

Register a managed database

Legacy:

As mentioned above, ArcGIS Enterprise 10.5.1 is the last release that will allow the use of an enterprise geodatabase as the managed database for a hosting server. To avoid having to migrate your data, use a relational data store for all newly configured hosting servers.

Specify the hosting server

Once one of your federated GIS Server sites has a relational data store, register it as the portal's hosting server.

  1. Sign in to the portal website as an administrator and browse to My Organization > Edit Settings > Servers.
  2. From the Hosting Server section of the page, click the drop-down list and choose one of the GIS Server sites you have federated with the portal. If you have added multiple GIS Server sites to your portal, only one can be designated as the hosting server.
  3. Click Save.

You can now publish hosted web layers.

Items for each of the services appear in My Content in the portal website for your portal organization.

The services that power these items appear in a folder named Hosted, which you will see when you log in to your GIS Server site from ArcGIS Server Manager.

If you have not already done so, you should now configure utility services for your portal.