At each release, new versions of the Esri Amazon Machine Image (AMI)s are available on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace. Many changes were made to the Esri AMIs at 10.7. At 10.7.1, newer versions of the operating systems are used.
At each release, improvements are also made to existing Esri sample AWS CloudFormation templates. The 10.7 upgrade template includes usability improvements.
See the latest deprecation notice to determine if your hardware and software components are compatible with ArcGIS 10.7 or 10.7.1, and to see a list of deprecated functionality.
For information on bug fixes, see the ArcGIS 10.7 Issues Addressed List and the ArcGIS 10.7.1 Issues Addressed List.
ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Amazon Web Services
ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Amazon Web Services is a new app and the ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder Command Line Interface for Amazon Web Services utility rolled into one. The new app walks you through the steps to create an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment or stand-alone ArcGIS Server site using a 10.7.1 Esri AMI.
Note:
ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Amazon Web Services was released shortly after the initial ArcGIS 10.7.1 release.
At 10.7.1, a new sample deployment file is available for use with the ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder CLI for AWS—standaloneimageserver.json. This file allows you to deploy a stand-alone ArcGIS Image Server site. Parameters for implementing a federated or stand-alone ArcGIS Image Server site are now grouped under a new ImageServer node in the deployment files. See ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder CLI for AWS parameters for more information on using this file and parameter set.
Create private images
A new, beta feature is available from Amazon Web Services—AWS Marketplace Private Image Build—that allows you to create customized images similar to Esri ArcGIS Enterprise AMIs based on your own AMI. You can use this service, in a beta capacity, to create private Esri AMIs based on your own AMI. The AMI you build is available to you only and can be used with Esri tools, such as ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder CLI for AWS and Esri CloudFormation templates, to create ArcGIS Enterprise deployments.
Improved upgrade experience
Starting with 10.7, the upgrade process and experience for deployments created with CloudFormation templates have been further automated and improved. You no longer have to upload ArcGIS software to your Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances or your own Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) bucket to upgrade. You don't have to run an upgrade on every Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud instance. You also don't have to manually update the autoscaling group instances used by ArcGIS Server sites and spatiotemporal big data stores.
The upgrade is a single process; just provide your Portal for ArcGIS and ArcGIS Server license files. See the documentation for the CloudFormation templates provided by Esri.
Changes to Esri AMIs
The following changes were made to the AMIs at 10.7:
- Previously, the instances you launched using Esri AMIs included a second Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volume, where you were advised to store your data. Because the root volumes are no longer destroyed when you terminate an instance, the second, empty data storage EBS volume is no longer included when you launch an instance from an Esri AMI. You can store data on the root drive or, if you have data already loaded on an EBS snapshot, you can attach it to your instance.
- ArcGIS Enterprise 10.7 on Microsoft Windows AMIs include ArcGIS Pro instead of ArcMap. You can license ArcGIS Pro through ArcGIS Online, thereby avoiding problems when you restart a license manager machine running on AWS.
- ArcGIS Enterprise 10.7 on Ubuntu AMIs do not include an installation of PostgreSQL. When you include a geodatabase with your deployment, use an instance of Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for PostgreSQL instead. Existing geodatabases in PostgreSQL on AWS will still work, and you can upgrade them as you would upgrade an on-premises enterprise geodatabase.
- ArcGIS Enterprise 10.7 on Windows AMIs do not include an installation of SQL Server Express. When you include an enterprise geodatabase with your deployment, use an instance of Amazon RDS for SQL Server instead. Existing geodatabases in SQL Server Express on AWS will still work, and you can upgrade them as you would upgrade an on-premises enterprise geodatabase.
If you use a workgroup license and need a workgroup database server, you must copy the Database Server Workgroup executable to one of the instances in your ArcGIS Server workgroup site on AWS to install an instance of SQL Server Express and enable it to store workgroup geodatabases. Once the database server exists, you need to connect to it from an on-premises ArcMap installation to create geodatabases, load data, and administer the database server.
- When you use ArcGIS Enterprise deployment tools for AWS to create an ArcGIS Server site, and you include an enterprise geodatabase, the geodatabase will be registered as the site's managed database. This allows you to copy data to the database when you publish feature services from on-premises desktop clients.
If you require a registered database to store source data, create a geodatabase in one of the supported database types and register it with your ArcGIS Server site.
At 10.7.1, the Windows AMI creates EC2 instances running Microsoft Windows Server 2019. The EC2 instances created with the 10.7.1 Ubuntu AMIs run Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
CloudFormation templates
Sample CloudFormation 10.7 and 10.7.1 templates include an option to use Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL to store geodatabases included in your deployment.
If you created a 10.6.1 deployment with a CloudFormation template, you can use the 10.7 upgrade CloudFormation template to upgrade your deployment to 10.7. Deployments created with a 10.7 CloudFormation template can be upgraded using the 10.7.1 CloudFormation upgrade template.