Skip To Content

Upgrade an ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site on AWS

How you upgrade depends on how and when you created the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site on Amazon Web Services (AWS). You can upgrade an site on Amazon Web Services (AWS) by running through manual upgrade procedures or, if you created the deployment using 10.8 or 10.8.1 Esri Amazon Web Services CloudFormation templates, you can upgrade using Chef scripts.

Before you upgrade

No matter which upgrade method you use, review the following information before you upgrade your deployment:

  • You need a new ArcGIS GeoEvent Server license file to upgrade to 10.9.1 from 10.8.1 or earlier.
  • Make a backup of the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site before upgrading.
  • If the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site is federated with an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, you must upgrade the portal before upgrading this federated server.
  • ArcGIS GeoEvent Server 10.9 and later sites on AWS can contain only one Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance.

    When you use manual upgrade procedures or a Chef script to upgrade, you must remove the EC2 instances in the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site from the AWS Auto Scaling group (if it is in one) and remove all but one EC2 from the site. Multiple machine ArcGIS GeoEvent Server sites are no longer supported on AWS.

    Once upgraded, do not put the remaining instance back in the Auto Scaling group because the site can contain only one instance.

    You cannot use the Lambda functions created using Amazon Web Services CloudFormation templates provided by Esri to stop and start the remaining instance after upgrading.

Upgrade using manual upgrade procedures

The manual upgrade procedure for an ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site on AWS requires you to remove all but one instance from the site. If the instances are deployed in an AWS Auto Scaling group, you must remove them from the Auto Scaling group before you upgrade. Once these steps are complete, you can follow the same procedure for upgrading as you would an ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site on premises.

See the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server installation guide for upgrade instructions:

Upgrade using Chef scripts

If you created the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site using a 10.8 or 10.8.1 Esri Amazon Web Services CloudFormation template, you can upgrade using Chef scripts.

When you use Chef scripts to upgrade an ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site on AWS that was created using a 10.8.x Esri Amazon Web Services CloudFormation template, you must bring the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site down to a single EC2 instance plus the file server instance, because multiple machine ArcGIS GeoEvent Server sites are no longer supported on AWS.

Upgrade steps are different for deployments on Microsoft Windows and Ubuntu. Follow the instructions applicable to the operating system of your deployment.

Upgrade a site on Windows

You can no longer use the Auto Scaling group with the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site, and you will remove all but the file server instance and a single ArcGIS GeoEvent Server EC2 instance from the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server stack. The remaining instance in the site must be added to the site's load balancer, and then you can upgrade ArcGIS GeoEvent Server.

Alter and delete the Auto Scaling group

First, remove the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server EC2 instances from the AWS Auto Scaling group and delete the group.

  1. Sign in to your account in AWS Management Console and access the Auto Scaling group for the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site.
  2. Change the minimum capacity property of the stack's Auto Scaling group to 0.
  3. Change the maximum capacity and desired capacity properties of the stack's Auto Scaling group to 1.

    This leaves a single GeoEvent Server instance. Multimachine ArcGIS GeoEvent Server sites are no longer supported.

  4. Once all but one of the instances in the group have been terminated, detach the remaining ArcGIS GeoEvent Server EC2 instance from the Auto Scaling group.

    See Detach EC2 instances from your Auto Scaling group in AWS documentation for more information.

  5. Once the instance has finished detaching, change the maximum capacity and desired capacity properties of the stack’s AutoScaling group to 0.
  6. Record the instance ID of the remaining EC2 instance.
  7. Delete the Auto Scaling group to prevent anyone from adding the instances back after the data store is upgraded.

Add the remaining instance to the load balancer target groups

You need to add the remaining EC2 instance to the load balancer because the instances were removed from the Auto Scaling group.

Follow these steps to add the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server EC2 instance that was detached from the Auto Scaling group in step 4 in the previous section to the four target groups that are associated with the load balancer.

  1. Open the AWS EC2 in the AWS Management Console.
  2. Click Load Balancers to view the load balancers in your account.
  3. Select the load balancer used for your ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site.
  4. Click the Listeners tab and make note of the four target groups listed under Default action.
  5. Click Target Groups to access the target groups so you can add the remaining ArcGIS GeoEvent Server instance to each of the target groups you recorded in substep d above.
  6. Register the instance ID of the remaining ArcGIS GeoEvent Server instance to each of the four target groups.

    See AWS documentation for information on how to register an instance with target groups.

Upgrade ArcGIS GeoEvent Server

Now you can upgrade the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server.

  1. Make a remote desktop connection to the remaining EC2 instance in the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site.
  2. Download and install Chef or Cinc client 16.16.13. If you have an older version of Chef installed, update it to version 16.16.13.
  3. Download the following 10.9.1 installation setup files from your account in My Esri and upload them to the C:\Software\Archives folder on the EC2 instance:

    • ArcGIS_Server_Windows_1091_180041.exe
    • ArcGIS_GeoEvent_Server_1091_180081.exe

  4. Obtain an ArcGIS GeoEvent Server 10.9.1 authorization file (.epc or .prvc) and place it in a local folder on the EC2 instance or a file share that you can access from the EC2 instance.
  5. Download the ArcGIS Cookbook version 3.8.0 (arcgis-3.8.0-cookbooks.zip) to the EC2 instance, unzip the file, and place the contents of the unzipped file in the C:\chef folder.
  6. Create a copy of your original C:\chef\node.json file and rename it to upgrade-geoevent-server.json.
  7. Open upgrade-geoevent-server.json in a text editor and modify the following parameters:

    • Set the ArcGIS version to 10.9.1.
      "arcgis" : {
          "version": "10.9.1",
    • Specify the location where you placed the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server authorization file.
      "arcgis" : {
          "server": {
          "authorization_file" : "<drive>\\<folder>"
    • Add the archive repository node and set it to the folder where you placed the software installation files on the EC2 instance.
      "arcgis" : {
          "repository": {
      	   "archives": "C:\\Software\\Archives"
    • Remove the following recipes from the run list:
      "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::system]",
      "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::post_install]"
    • Change "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::server_node]", recipe to "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::server]".

    The run list should now contain the following recipes:

        "run_list"  : [
    "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::server]",
    "recipe[arcgis-geoevent]"
    ]

  8. Save and close the upgrade-geoevent-server.json file.
  9. Open a command line window as an administrator, change the directory to C:\chef, and run the following command: chef-client -z -j c:\chef\upgrade-geoevent-server.json.

Upgrade a site on Ubuntu

You can no longer use the Auto Scaling group with the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site, and you will remove all but the file server instance and a single ArcGIS GeoEvent Server EC2 instance from the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server stack. The remaining instance in the site must be added to the site's load balancer, and then you can upgrade ArcGIS GeoEvent Server.

Alter and delete the Auto Scaling group

First, remove the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server EC2 instances from the AWS Auto Scaling group and delete the group.

  1. Sign in to your account in AWS Management Console and access the Auto Scaling group for the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site.
  2. Change the minimum capacity property of the stack's Auto Scaling group to 0.
  3. Change the maximum capacity and desired capacity properties of the stack's Auto Scaling group to 1.

    This leaves a single GeoEvent Server instance. Multimachine ArcGIS GeoEvent Server sites are no longer supported.

  4. Once all but one of the instances in the group have been terminated, detach the remaining ArcGIS GeoEvent Server EC2 instance from the Auto Scaling group.

    See Detach EC2 instances from your Auto Scaling group in AWS documentation for more information.

  5. Once the instance has finished detaching, change the maximum capacity and desired capacity properties of the stack’s AutoScaling group to 0.
  6. Record the instance ID of the remaining EC2 instance.
  7. Delete the Auto Scaling group to prevent anyone from adding the instances back after the data store is upgraded.

Add the remaining instance to the load balancer target groups

You need to add the remaining EC2 instance to the load balancer because the instances were removed from the Auto Scaling group.

Follow these steps to add the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server EC2 instance that was detached from the Auto Scaling group in step 4 in the previous section to the four target groups that are associated with the load balancer.

  1. Open the AWS EC2 in the AWS Management Console.
  2. Click Load Balancers to view the load balancers in your account.
  3. Select the load balancer used for your ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site.
  4. Click the Listeners tab and make note of the four target groups listed under Default action.
  5. Click Target Groups to access the target groups so you can add the remaining ArcGIS GeoEvent Server instance to each of the target groups you recorded in substep d above.
  6. Register the instance ID of the remaining ArcGIS GeoEvent Server instance to each of the four target groups.

    See AWS documentation for information on how to register an instance with target groups.

Upgrade ArcGIS GeoEvent Server

Now you can upgrade the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server.

  1. As the ubuntu user, SSH into the remaining EC2 instance in the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site.
  2. Use one of the following commands to download and install Chef or Cinc client 16.16.13. If you have an older version of Chef installed, update it to version 16.16.13.
    • Chef client: sudo curl -L https://omnitruck.chef.io/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- -v 16.16.13
    • Cinc client: sudo curl -L https://omnitruck.cinc.sh/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- -v 16.16.13
  3. Download the following 10.9.1 installation setup files from your account in My Esri and upload them to the /opt/software/archives folder on the remaining EC2 instance:

    • ArcGIS_Server_Linux_1091_180182.tar.gz
    • ArcGIS_GeoEvent_Server_Linux_1091_180218.tar.gz

  4. Obtain an ArcGIS GeoEvent Server 10.9.1 authorization file (.epc or .prvc) and place it in a local folder on the EC2 instance or a file share that you can access from the EC2 instance.
  5. Download the ArcGIS Cookbook version 3.8.0 (arcgis-3.8.0-cookbooks.tar.gz) to the EC2 instance, untar and unzip the file, and place the files contents in the /var/chef directory.
  6. Delete the nodes directory under /var/chef/, and delete the local-mode-cache directory under /etc/chef/.
  7. Create a copy of your original /etc/chef/node.json file and rename it to upgrade-geoevent-server.json.
  8. Open upgrade-geoevent-server.json in a text editor and modify the following parameters:

    • Set the ArcGIS version to 10.9.1.
      "arcgis" : {
          "version": "10.9.1",
    • Specify the location where you placed the ArcGIS GeoEvent Server authorization file.
      "arcgis" : {
          "server": {
          "authorization_file" : "/<folder>/subfolder"
    • Add the archive repository node and set it to the folder where you placed the software installation files on the EC2 instance.
      "arcgis" : {
          "repository": {
      	   "archives": "/opt/software/archives"
    • Remove the following recipes from the run list:
      "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::system]",
      "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::post_install]"
    • Change "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::server_node]", recipe to "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::server]".

    The run list should now contain the following recipes:

        "run_list"  : [
    "recipe[arcgis-enterprise::server]",
    "recipe[arcgis-geoevent]"
    ]

  9. Save and close the upgrade-geoevent-server.json file.
  10. As the ubuntu user, run the following command: chef-client -z -j /etc/chef/upgrade-geoevent-server.json.

Upgrade using a CloudFormation template

If you used the 10.9 deployment CloudFormation template provided by Esri (arcgis-geoevent-server-singlemachine.template.json) to create an ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site, you can use the corresponding 10.9.1 upgrade template (arcgis-geoevent-server-singlemachine-upgrade.template.json) to upgrade it. See Upgrade a single-machine ArcGIS GeoEvent Server site using CloudFormation for instructions on using the upgrade template.