Tip:
An ArcGIS Server site is composed of one or more ArcGIS Server machines that have the ArcGIS Server component installed. Web service requests for maps, address coordinates, geoprocessing jobs, and so on, are each assigned to an available machine within the site. That machine then does the work of drawing the map, finding the address coordinate, running the geoprocessing tool, and so on, and returns the result to the client. Essentially, ArcGIS Server machines are the work centers of your site.
If you need to expand your site, you can add additional machines to your site using ArcGIS Server Manager or ArcMap.
Criteria for adding an ArcGIS Server machine to a site
The Join Site operation adds a new machine to an existing ArcGIS Server site. This can be done temporarily to migrate to new machines, or more permanently to increase the resources and processing power of your server site. If you are using Join Site to migrate, the new and existing machines do not need to match, but if you intend to keep all machines in the site, we recommend you ensure they meet the following criteria:
- The new machine must be running on the same operating system platform as the other ArcGIS Server machines in the site. It is recommended that you use the same operating system version and hardware resources for all machines in your site. For example, if you have a site comprised of ArcGIS Server machines, each running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 with a 3 GHz processor and 8 GB of RAM, the machine you add to the site should also have the same operating system and hardware specifications.
- It must be at the same version number as the other ArcGIS Server machines in the site.
- It must have the same license applied to it as the other ArcGIS Server machines in the site.
- It must be able to read and write to the site's configuration store and server directories. See About the configuration store and About server directories to learn about this requirement.
- It must be able to communicate with all the other ArcGIS Server machines in the site through the ports listed in Ports used by ArcGIS Server. This may require adjustment of firewall settings.
- It must be able to read any data referenced by services on the site. A good way to verify this is to check whether the machine has permissions to all the data storage locations registered with the site. See About registering your data with ArcGIS Server to learn more about these registered locations.
- All running ArcGIS Server machines need to be able to read and write to the same shared directories through NFS using the same mount point on all systems. For example, if you are mounting a file server shared directory to /arcgis on one machine and using it for your configuration store and server directories, then all machines must also mount that same directory to /arcgis.
- All ArcGIS Server machines need to be running under users who have the same user id (uid) or group id (gid) in order to be able to read and write to the shared configuration store and server directory locations.
How to add ArcGIS Server machines to your site
You can add ArcGIS Server to your site using Manager or ArcMap. Follow the steps in the related topics below.