Deploy ArcGIS Pro on Microsoft Azure

You can deploy a machine on Microsoft Azure to run ArcGIS Pro. Use this client to connect to your ArcGIS Enterprise and database deployments on Azure.

You need the following to deploy ArcGIS Pro on Microsoft Azure:

• Microsoft Azure subscription
• Esri ArcGIS Pro image
• ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure
• ArcGIS Pro license

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 the 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 ArcGIS Pro, you can use a license file, or you can license ArcGIS Pro through the ArcGIS Enterprise portal license.

You can download licenses from your account in My Esri.

Install ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure

Download and install ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure 11.4.

Deploy an ArcGIS Pro client

Use ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure to create a machine containing ArcGIS Pro.

Tip:

To determine what machine types and options you need, see ArcGIS Pro system requirements.

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.

   Note:

   The account you use to connect must be assigned the following roles at a minimum:

   • The Azure Reader role at the subscription scope level
   • The Azure Contributor role at the resource group scope level if you will use resource groups that you create outside Cloud Builder

3. Choose an Entra ID tenant, click Next, choose a subscription in which to create a deployment, and click Next.
4. If your subscription contains any deployments, you must first filter the deployments list for desktop deployments before you can deploy a new desktop machine. Choose Desktops next to the Show label at the top of the Deployments page.
5. Click Deploy an ArcGIS Pro VM to proceed to the Image Options settings.
6. Choose a resource group or click the Add button to create a resource group for your site.

   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 that 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.
7. 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.

8. Choose the machine image to use: an image provided by Esri, a managed image, an image in the Azure Compute Gallery, or an image you create.

   The image must exist in the region in which you will create the deployment.

   • To use an Esri image, choose the image from the drop-down list.
   • To use an image from the image list, choose Managed images, and choose the image from the drop-down list.
   • To use a machine image in the Azure Compute Gallery, choose the gallery from the Select gallery drop-down list, choose the machine image from the Select image drop-down list, choose the ArcGIS software version to include on the image from the Select version drop-down list, and choose the Azure region from the Select region list. The region should be the same as where your resource group is deployed.
   • To create an image from a source VHD file, choose Managed images, and do the following:
   1. Click the Add button next to Select image.
   2. Provide a name for the image and click Check availability to ensure that the name is unique.

      The image name can contain only letters, numbers, underscores (_), dots (.), and 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 from which you create the image.

   5. For Source disk, click the button to browse to the .vhd file in your storage account. Choose the storage account that contains the file, 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. For Size, 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 the Microsoft Azure documentation for more information about Azure managed disks.

   8. Click Create to create the image.

   Once created, the image is available in the list of images the next time you create a deployment.

9. Optionally, add one or more user-assigned managed identities for authentication purposes when accessing an Azure Blob Storage container used for Azure Monitor Log Analytics.
   1. Click the Add button in the Assign User Assigned Managed Identity section.
   2. Choose the subscription that contains the identity.
   3. Choose the user-assigned managed identity from the Identity drop-down list and click Add.

   Tip:

   A user-assigned managed identity is required if you will enable Azure Monitor Log Analytics.

   The Azure Storage Blob Data Owner role must be assigned to the user-assigned managed identity. See the Microsoft Azure documentation for instructions to assign a role to a user-assigned managed identity.

10. Click Next to proceed to the Networking Options settings.
11. Choose an existing virtual network from the drop-down list or click the Create button to create a virtual network.
12. To create a virtual network using Cloud Builder, do the following:
    1. Provide a name for the virtual network.

       Names must be unique within your Azure subscription.

    2. Click Check availability to ensure that the name you provided 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 the Microsoft documentation for more information about address classes.

    4. Choose the CIDR value from the VM subnet IP 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.
13. The virtual machine 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. A check mark appears if your domain name is unique.

    If you use an existing public IP address, the IP address must use a standard SKU. See the Microsoft Azure documentation for more information on public IP addresses and SKU.

    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 machine.

14. Click Next to proceed to the Machine Options settings.
15. Provide a username and password for Machine administrator.

    This is the Windows login you will use to administer the virtual machines in the site, and you will need it when you upgrade the deployment. The same login and password are used for all machines in the site.

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

16. Use the default virtual machine type and size or click the Configure Virtual Machine button to specify machine and disk configurations for an Azure virtual machine that Cloud Builder will create for ArcGIS Pro.
17. Choose the time zone you want your virtual machines to use.
18. 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, ensure the Join existing Windows domain? option is checked.
    2. Provide the name of the Active Directory domain.
    3. Provide the username and password for the domain administrator.
    4. Click Apply.
19. Provide a name for the virtual machine.
20. If you check the Enable automatic operating system updates check box, Microsoft Azure will apply updates to the operating systems on your virtual machines.
21. If you do not require access to your deployment during specific hours of the day, you can configure the machines to shut down at a specific time each day. To do this, check the Enable daily automatic shutdown check box and set the shutdown time from the drop-down list.

    The time is in the time zone you chose for the virtual machines.

    Shutting down machines allows you to save money because the machines are not running when you do not need them. However, the machines do not automatically restart; you must restart each machine in the deployment when you need them again. You can restart the machines from Cloud Builder or the Microsoft Azure portal.

22. Check the Enable remote desktop access using a jumpbox port box. You can use the default port or type a different one.

    The port shown in the UI is the port through which you will access your machine. You must enable remote desktop access to your machine on Azure to license and use the clients.

23. Click Next to proceed to the Deployment Options settings.
24. Choose or create a storage account for your deployment. To create a storage account, do the following:
    1. Provide a name for the storage account.

       Names must be unique. Click Check availability to confirm that the storage account name is unique.

    2. Choose the Azure region where your storage will reside.
    3. Choose an existing resource group for the storage account or click the Create button to create one.
    4. Choose the type of redundancy for your storage account: Geo-Redundant, Locally Redundant, or Read-Access Geo-Redundant.

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

    5. Specify the kind of Azure storage account to use: Storage (a legacy account type), StorageV2 (a basic account type), or BlobStorage (only supports Azure Blob storage).
    6. Once the storage account is created, click Close.
25. Optionally, enable monitoring for the site by checking the box next to Enable monitoring using Azure Monitor Log Analytics.
    1. Choose or create a workspace where log analytics will be stored.
    2. From the Azure monitoring agent user ID drop-down list, choose the user-assigned managed identity you specified with the site options.

       This information is required to enable Azure Monitor Log Analytics.

26. Click Next to view a summary of your settings.
27. 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 usernames or machine names.

28. Click Save automation artifacts to export an archive file (.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 of automation format you will use.
    3. Click Generate to create the file.
29. When all settings are correct and you have saved the files you need, click Finish to create the virtual machine containing the ArcGIS client installations.
30. To license ArcGIS Pro, assign licenses through your ArcGIS Enterprise portal or an ArcGIS Online organization.