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Migrating services to the ArcGIS Pro service runtime

ArcGIS Server web services transform the maps you author in ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap into web GIS resources. The back-end structure of web services published from ArcGIS Pro are fundamentally different from those published from ArcMap. This structure, called a service runtime, determines the functions available in a service. Many newer capabilities of web services, such as the ability to use shared instances, are only supported by the ArcGIS Pro service runtime.

Note:

This difference in service runtime applies to ArcGIS Server web services only; it does not apply to hosted services. Therefore, there is no need to migrate or republish hosted services.

ArcGIS Enterprise 10.9.1 can support web services from both service runtimes if you have the ArcMap Runtime Support feature enabled. You can publish services to ArcGIS Server from either ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap, and you can also upgrade ArcGIS Server to 10.9.1 without losing the services published to your server site. However, ArcGIS Server 10.9.x is the last release cycle to support the ArcMap service runtime. After 10.9.1, you cannot publish services from ArcMap (including ArcPy based in ArcMap) to ArcGIS Server sites. Additionally, some services published from ArcMap will no longer function if present when you upgrade to ArcGIS Server software released after 10.9.1.

Esri recommends that you prepare now for when ArcMap service runtime is no longer supported. The following sections summarize the process of getting your staff and web services ready.

Transition publishers to ArcGIS Pro

Publish all new ArcGIS Server web services from ArcGIS Pro. That means publishers in your organization need installations of ArcGIS Pro and time to learn that product if they are not already familiar with it.

Learn more about service publishing in ArcGIS Pro

Migrate existing services

You can begin now to migrate ArcGIS Server map, image, and geodata services from ArcMap service runtime to ArcGIS Pro service runtime.

The following tools are available with ArcGIS Server to allow you to migrate services to the ArcGIS Pro service runtime:

  • In ArcGIS Server Manager, the Edit Runtime option is available for eligible services. This operation migrates services from the ArcMap service runtime to the ArcGIS Pro service runtime and can also be reversed to return to the ArcMap service runtime if the migrated service isn't working correctly. Some map service capabilities aren't supported by this operation and must be removed from the service before migrating.
  • A command line toolUpdateArcMapServices—is also available, which allows you to migrate services in bulk to the ArcGIS Pro service runtime. This tool supports migration of image services as well as map services. Before you migrate services, you can run the UpdateArcMapServices tool in analysis mode to determine which map and image services running on the ArcGIS Server site can be migrated and which ones have unsupported capabilities that you must disable before you can migrate them.

ArcMap can continue to consume the services after you migrate them to ArcGIS Pro service runtime.

For more information on migrating services, see the technical paper Manually migrating services from the ArcMap-based to the ArcGIS Pro-based runtime.

Republish services that cannot be migrated

The following service types cannot be migrated. You must author them in ArcGIS Pro and publish new services for them to use the ArcGIS Pro service runtime.

The following table lists services you must republish from ArcGIS Pro and provides links to more information about publishing that type of service.

Service typeHelp to publish from ArcGIS Pro

Geoprocessing service

Publish web tools in ArcGIS Pro (to publish to a federated server)

Publish a geoprocessing service in ArcGIS Pro

Geocode service

Share a locator (to publish to a federated server)

Publish a geocode service (to publish to a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site)

Services that contain layer types that the ArcGIS Pro runtime does not support. These include raster catalogs, time-enabled layers created by the Tracking Analyst extension, and data stored in IBM Informix or IBM Db2 for z/OS.

Tip:

When you run the UpdateArcMapServices tool in analysis mode, it identifies the map and image services that contain unsupported layer types.

For cached map and image services that contain unsupported layer types, you don't have to re-create the cache. You can delete the service that uses the ArcMap service runtime and publish a service from ArcGIS Pro that references the existing cache.

When you publish the service from ArcGIS Pro, the service must have the same name as the old service and it must reference the same data as the old service. When you publish, choose the Using an existing cache option and choose the directory that contains the existing cache, as described in the ArcGIS Pro help pages in the next column.

Configure a map service

Configure an image service

ArcGIS Workflow Manager (Classic) services

Run the Publish Workflow Service geoprocessing tool from ArcGIS Pro 2.9.

Migrate SOEs and SOIs

If any of the services you migrated or republished were using custom server object extensions (SOEs) or server object interceptors (SOIs), you must migrate the SOEs and SOIs from ArcObjects SDK to ArcGIS Enterprise SDK before you can add them back to the ArcGIS Pro runtime services. See the blog article, Migrating ArcObjects SOEs and SOIs to ArcGIS Enterprise SDK for more information.

Services that cannot be migrated or republished

You cannot migrate schematics services (map services with the schematics capability enabled) to ArcGIS Pro service runtime or republish them from ArcGIS Pro.

If you no longer use the schematics service, you can disable the Schematics capability from the map service and migrate the map service.