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Workgroup geodatabases included with ArcGIS Server for Amazon Web Services

If you have a workgroup edition license, you can use the ArcGIS Enterprise (Windows) Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to create a single-machine ArcGIS Enterprise deployment or a single-machine. stand-alone ArcGIS Server site. To use this, you authorize your instance with your workgroup license. If you create a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site, you can use the SQL Server Express instance that is included with the AMI to store data in workgroup geodatabases.

The SQL Server Express instance (database server) comes with two geodatabases already created: egdb and geodata. The egdb geodatabase is registered as the GIS Server site's managed database. When you publish feature or WFS-T services to a site that has a geodatabase registered in this way, the data is copied from your source to the egdb geodatabse.

Considerations when using workgroup geodatabases on AWS

  • If you connect to the database server from ArcGIS Desktop in the ArcGIS Enterprise on Amazon Web Services instance, use localhost in place of the server name.

    In the cloud, you are not locked into one specific server; therefore, you cannot specify a server name to connect to the SQL Server Express instance. Using localhost ensures ArcGIS can find the SQL Server Express instance.

  • If you want to publish services to your ArcGIS Server site from the ArcMap installation on your ArcGIS Enterprise on Amazon Web Services instance, you must create database connection (.sde) files for each geodatabase you want to use for source data because you cannot publish an ArcGIS service from the Database Servers node (a .gdb file) in the Catalog tree. If the service you are publishing is going to contain data from a workgroup geodatabase, the service must point to a database connection (.sde file). To create a connection under Database Connections, right-click the geodatabase under the database server in the Catalog tree and click Save Connection. This creates a .sde file in the default location: Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\ESRI\Desktop<#>\ArcCatalog. Place the file in a location that the ArcGIS user can access to publish an ArcGIS service using the data in the geodatabase.
  • Workgroup geodatabases are limited to a size of 10 GB.
  • Workgroup geodatabases use Windows authentication exclusively. Therefore, if you want to add more users to the database server, you must add users to the ArcGIS Server instance, add the new users to the database server, and grant permissions. Local users must be placed in the Windows Remote Desktop Users group to be able to log in to the EC2 instance.
  • If you create a new ArcGIS Server workgroup site on AWS and want to move your existing geodatabases to it, you must first detach the geodatabases from the database server in your existing instance, move the .mdf file to the new instance, and attach the geodatabase to the new database server. See Move workgroup geodatabases between ArcGIS Server on Amazon Web Services instance for instructions.

See the topics in the Administering geodatabases on database servers section of the ArcMap help if you want to customize or directly administer these types of geodatabases.