Deploy an ArcGIS Server site on Microsoft Azure

You can deploy a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site on Microsoft Azure and publish to it from on-premises ArcMap clients. You can deploy one of the following types of stand-alone ArcGIS Server sites:

• GIS Server: Publish map, feature, geocoding, geodata, geometry, geoprocessing, network, print, and schematic services.
• ArcGIS GeoEvent Server: Stream real-time data through GeoEvent services.
• ArcGIS Image Server: Publish image services.

You need the following to deploy a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site on Microsoft Azure:

• Microsoft Azure subscription
• Esri images
• ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure
• The type of ArcGIS Server license needed for the server role: ArcGIS GIS Server, ArcGIS GeoEvent Server, or ArcGIS Image Server
• An SSL certificate from a certifying authority that you have exported to a .pfx file and for which you have set up CNAME mapping to the domain you specify in Cloud Builder (optional, but strongly recommended)

Get a Microsoft Azure subscription

A Microsoft Azure subscription and account are required to use Microsoft Azure infrastructure and services. Contact Microsoft to purchase a subscription.

Enable programmatic deployment of ArcGIS images

Before you can use the images from the Azure Marketplace, you must enable the programmatic deployment of ArcGIS. An administrator of your Azure subscription must enable programmatic deployment once for each type of ArcGIS image. This enables all current and future ArcGIS images of that type on the Azure Marketplace.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
2. Browse to the ArcGIS image in the Virtual Machine Marketplace.
   1. Click Marketplace on the home screen.
   2. Choose Virtual Machines.
   3. Type arcgis in the search text box.
3. Choose the ArcGIS image you need from the search results.
4. Click Want to deploy programatically? Get Started at the bottom of the pane.

   The Configure Programmatic Deployment pane appears.

5. Read the legal terms and Azure Marketplace Terms. If you accept their conditions, proceed with enabling programmatic deployment.
6. Click Enable for your subscription.
7. Click Save.

Your Azure subscription is now set to use an Esri image from Cloud Builder.

Obtain a license from Esri

To deploy an ArcGIS Server site, you need an ArcGIS Server license.

Install ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure

Download the ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure installation file, and run it on a local Windows machine to install.

Deploy a stand-alone site

Follow these steps to configure a stand-alone GeoEvent, GIS, or Image Server site on Microsoft Azure:

1. Start ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure.
2. Sign in to Microsoft Azure.

   If you want to use the Microsoft Azure Government cloud and have an Azure Government subscription, check U.S. Government Cloud.

3. Choose the Azure subscription that contains the image you want to use and click next.
4. Click deploy a new site.
5. Choose the ArcGIS Server site role you require: GeoEvent Server, Image Server, or GIS Server.
6. Click next to proceed to Image and Domain Options.
7. Create a resource group for your site. Click the add button +.

   A resource group is a container that holds related resources for an application.

   1. Provide an intuitive name for the resource group. The name can contain alphanumeric characters, dashes (-), underscores (_), parentheses (()), and dots (.).
   2. Click Check Availability to ensure the name is unique and can be used for your resource group.
   3. Choose a region for the resource group.
   4. Click create.
   5. Once the resource group is created, click close.
8. Choose the image to use: either an Esri image, an image in your subscription, or an image you create.
   • If you choose an Esri image, use the drop-down list in the To: field to specify the Azure region for your deployment.
   • To use a custom image in your subscription, click Image in this Azure Subscription and choose the image from the drop-down list.
   • To create an image from a source VHD file, follow these steps:
   1. Click the add button + under Image in this Azure Subscription.
   2. Type a name for the image and click Check Availability to be sure the name is unique.

      The image name can contain only letters, numbers, underscores (_), periods (.), or hyphens (-). The name must start with a letter or number and end with a letter, number, or underscore.

   3. Choose or create a resource group in which to store the image.
   4. Choose the region in which to create the image. Use the same region that contains the .VHD file.
   5. For Source Disk, click the button to browse to your .VHD file in your storage account. Choose the storage account the file is in, choose the file, and click ok.

      The storage accounts available on the Select Image Disk dialog box are based on the region you chose in the previous step.

   6. Choose the type of image to create.

      HDD uses magnetic storage. SSD images use faster, solid state drives.

   7. Choose the image Size.

      The image size determines the minimum size of the operating system disk (C:\) of the virtual machine created from the image. You can increase the size of the provisioned disk for the virtual machine created from the image, but you cannot decrease the size below the image size. See Azure Managed Disks Overview in the Microsoft Azure documentation for more information.

   8. Click create to create the image.
9. Your site deployment requires a public IP address provided by Microsoft Azure, and the public IP address must have a DNS name associated with it. This name is in the format mydomain.<location>.cloudapp.azure.com. Either choose an existing public IP address or type a name for a new domain that ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure will create.

   Domain names must be unique within an Azure region. If you want ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure to create the domain, click Check Availability to ensure the domain name is not in use. A check mark appears if your domain name is unique.

   Note:

   To use a certificate authority issued SSL certificate, the domain name must match the CNAME mapping you configured for the certificate.

   Also note that the location prefix will reflect the region in which you deploy your site.

10. If you have an ArcGIS Server workgroup edition license, are deploying a test or demonstration site, or only want one machine in your ArcGIS Server site, check Single machine deployment. Only one Azure machine will be used for your site. If you have an enterprise edition ArcGIS Server license and want to distribute processing and connection loads across multiple machines, uncheck Single machine deployment.
11. To avoid collision of Azure resource names within resource groups, Cloud Builder allows you to prefix resources with a specified string by checking Prefix Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Resource names with and providing up to three alphanumeric characters. Cloud Builder automatically populates this value with a random two-character string. If you want to change this, type a prefix to add to Azure resource names such as load balancers and availability sets.

    Prefixes must start with an alphabetic character.

    Adding a prefix avoids collision of resource names and allows you to categorize resources according to your requirements for managing in the Azure portal or billing.

    For disaster recovery configurations, create multiple resource groups with the same prefix.

12. Click next to proceed to the License and Credentials settings.
13. Browse to the location of your ArcGIS GIS Server, ArcGIS GeoEvent Server, or ArcGIS Image Server license file.
14. Type a user name and password for Site Administrator. This is the ArcGIS Server primary site administrator account.
15. Type a user name and password for ArcGIS Service Account, which is the Windows login under which the ArcGIS Server service will run.
16. Click next to proceed to Federation Options.
17. Choose Stand Alone (Not Federated).
18. Click next to proceed to Machine Options.
19. Type a user name and password for Machine Administrator.

    This is the Windows login you will use to administer the virtual machines in your site. The same login and password are used for all machines in your site.

    The user name must contain three or more characters, contain no spaces, and cannot be admin or administrator. The password must meet Windows Server complexity requirements.

20. If you chose a single machine deployment, click the Configure Virtual Machine button to specify the size of the virtual machine.
21. Choose the time zone you want your virtual machines to use.
22. If you have an existing Windows Domain in your Azure environment to which you want to add your machine (or machines), click Domain Join Options.
    1. On the Domain Join Options dialog box, be sure the Join Existing Windows Domain? option is checked.
    2. Provide the name of the Active Directory domain.
    3. Provide the user name and password for the domain administrator.
    4. Click apply.
23. If you chose a single machine deployment, type a Name for the virtual machine.
24. If you want Microsoft Windows to apply updates, check Enable Automatic Operating System Updates.
25. If you want to directly log in to your virtual machines, check Enable Remote Desktop Access Using Port. The port shown in the UI is the port through which you will access your machines.

    In a multimachine deployment, the remote desktop connection provides access to the file share machine. To access the other machines in your deployment, connect to the file share machine and, from there, use remote desktop connections to the other machines using the machine host names, fully qualified domain names, or IP addresses.

26. Choose an existing virtual network from the drop-down list or click the Create button (+) to create a virtual network.
27. To create a virtual network using Cloud Builder, specify the following:
    1. Type a name for the virtual network. Names must be unique within your Azure subscription.
    2. Click Check Availability to be sure the name you typed is unique. If the name is unique, a check mark appears in the Name field.
    3. Choose the range of TCP/IP addresses (the address space class) to be used by your virtual network. See Microsoft documentation for more information on address classes.
    4. Choose the CIDR value from the VM Count drop-down list to determine the maximum number of addresses to be used in your address space.
    5. Click create.
    6. Once the virtual network is created, click close.
28. Click next to proceed.
If you are creating a GIS Server site, you can register a managed database in the Database Options pane. Complete the next two steps. If you are creating a GeoEvent or Image Server, proceed to step 31.
29. Specify where you want feature service data to be stored.
    • If you want the feature services you publish to this ArcGIS Server site to access data in Azure SQL Database, choose Microsoft Azure SQL Database. When you publish feature services, the data will be copied from the source database or geodatabase and placed in the managed database in Azure SQL Database.
    • If you want the feature services you publish to this ArcGIS Server site to access data in Azure Database for PostgreSQL, choose Microsoft Azure Database for PostgreSQL. When you publish feature services, the data will be copied from the source database or geodatabase and placed in the managed database in Azure Database for PostgreSQL.
    • If you want the feature services you publish to this ArcGIS Server site to access data in a SQL Server database on a Microsoft Azure virtual machine, choose Microsoft SQL Server. When you publish feature services, the data will be copied from the source database or geodatabase and placed in the managed database in the SQL Server database on Azure.
    • If you do not want feature service data copied to a managed database, choose None. Be aware that feature service data will be copied to a file geodatabase on the ArcGIS Server machine when you publish. If you want to reference the data directly from your on-premises database, you must set up connectivity from the ArcGIS Server site (typically using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) between your on-premises network and Azure Virtual Network) and register the database with the site.
30. To register a managed database, either provide server, database name, database administrator, and user name information for an existing Azure SQL Database or SQL Server database on Azure, or use the Cloud Builder interface to define these.

    Note that the database administrator user name and password are required to create a database server and database, so you will be prompted to provide those.

    The database user in a managed database is the user account that owns the data that is copied to the managed database when the feature service is published.

31. Click next to proceed to Deployment Options.
32. Choose or create a storage account for your deployment. To create a storage account, follow these steps:
    1. Type a name for the storage account. Names must be unique. Click Check Availability to confirm the storage account name is unique.
    2. Choose the Azure region where your storage will reside.
    3. Choose an existing resource group or create a new one.
    4. Choose the type of redundancy for your storage account: Geo-Redundant, Locally Redundant, or Read-Access Geo-Redundant.

       See Azure Storage replication in Microsoft Azure documentation for a description of each redundancy option.

    5. Once the storage account is created, click close.
33. If you are creating a multiple-machine site, type a prefix to add to the virtual machine names and set virtual machine names and sizes.
    • If you want ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure to assign names and default sizes (Standard_DS3_v2 for two ArcGIS Server machines and one file share machine used for ArcGIS Server directories), click Use default names and sizes for the machines. Note that if you provided an ArcGIS GeoEvent Server license, you will get a three-machine site that uses default names and sizes.
    • If you want to specify the number of servers, their sizes, and their names, click Specify names and sizes for the individual machines.
34. To specify names and sizes for a multiple-machine site, set these properties in the Machine Names pane. Machine names must be 15 characters or less in length.

    License:

    Do not run ArcGIS Server on a greater number of CPU cores than you have licensed with Esri, regardless of whether the cores are in the cloud or on-premises. For an explanation of core licensing for virtual machines, see Licensing ArcGIS Enterprise Deployments in Virtualized and Cloud Environments .

Tip:

You can change disk types and sizes after you deploy.

35. Check Use Azure Cloud Storage for the configuration store? if you want to store directories for your deployment in Azure Cloud Storage.

    Placing directories in Azure Cloud Storage makes them highly available. If you do not check this option, the directories are stored on disk on the virtual machine used as the file share for the deployment.

36. If you check Use Azure Cloud Storage for the configuration and content store?, choose which storage option to use.
    • Choose Azure Files (SMB) to store your ArcGIS Server configuration store and directories in Azure Files.
    • Choose Azure Blobs and Tables to store the ArcGIS Server configuration store in Azure Blob Storage.
37. Specify or create the Azure storage account for the Azure Cloud Storage. The storage account must be in the same region as your ArcGIS Server site. To create a storage account in the region group for this site, follow these steps:
    1. Click the + button.
    2. Type a name for the storage account. Names must be unique. Click Check Availability to confirm the storage account name is unique.
    3. Choose the type of redundancy for your storage account: Geo-Redundant, Locally Redundant, or Read-Access Geo-Redundant.

       See Azure Storage replication in Microsoft Azure documentation for a description of each redundancy option.

    4. Click create. When the storage account is created, click close to return to Deployment Options.
38. Click next to proceed to Certificate Options.
39. Specify the SSL certificate to use for your deployment. Esri recommends that you use a certificate issued by a certificate authority (CA).
    • To use a CA certificate, choose Certificate issued by a Certificate Authority, browse to and choose the Pfx File you exported from your certificate, specify the Password set on the file, and, in the Domain Name (Alias) text box, type the CNAME you mapped to your domain.
    • If you are setting up an ArcGIS Server site for testing purposes and, therefore, choose not to use a CA certificate, choose Self Signed Certificate (Automatically generated), and Cloud Builder will generate a self-signed certificate for your virtual machines. Note that people connecting to your ArcGIS Server site and services will receive warnings that the site is not trusted if you use a self-signed certificate.
40. Click next to view a summary of your settings.
41. Review the settings in the Summary pane. If anything needs to be changed, click back to go to the page where you need to change the information.

    Tip:

    Click save summary to save your site configuration information to a text file so you can refer to it for information such as user names or machine names.

42. Click save automation artifacts to export an archive (.zip) file containing information and files you can use in automation scripts to re-create this deployment.
    1. Browse to a location on the local disk where the archive file will be created and type a name for the file.
    2. Choose the type automation format you will use.
    3. Click generate to create the file.
43. When all settings are correct and you have saved the files you need, click finish to create your ArcGIS Server site.

When the site successfully deploys, a link to ArcGIS Server Manager will appear in the message box. To connect to Manager at a later time, use the URL format https://<DNS_name>.<region>.cloudapp.azure.com/arcgis/manager.

If you want to configure Azure Active Directory as a SAML-based identity provider for your ArcGIS Server site, do so now. See the topic Configure Azure Active Directory in the Portal for ArcGIS Administrator Guide for instructions.