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What's new for ArcGIS Enterprise 10.8.1 and 10.8 on Microsoft Azure

At each release, new versions of ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure and the Esri images on Microsoft Azure Marketplace are available.

For information on bug fixes, see the ArcGIS 10.8.1 Issues Addressed and ArcGIS 10.8 Issues Addressed lists.

New in 10.8.1

Version 2 (V2) and version 1 (V1) deployments you created using ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure can be upgraded using the 10.8.1 version of Cloud Builder.

The 10.8.1 tile cache ArcGIS Data Store defaults to deploying in primary-standby mode; therefore, tile cache data stores you include in new 10.8.1 deployments created with Cloud Builder also default to primary-standby mode. When you upgrade a V2 10.8 deployment that includes a tile cache data store, the tile cache data store remains in cluster mode.

When you deploy ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Server, and ArcGIS Pro, you can specify that the machines in the deployment automatically shut down at a specific time each day. This is useful if you don't need access to the deployment at certain times of day; shutting down the machines can save you money. For example, if your GIS analysts only need to run ArcGIS Pro on Azure during work hours, you could schedule the ArcGIS Pro machine to shut down at the end of the workday. You can start the machine at the beginning of the next workday so that it is available for the analyst.

New in 10.8

The 10.8 version of ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure creates ArcGIS Enterprise deployments that use a single Azure Application Gateway to access the portal and all federated servers. This is referred to as a version 2 (V2) deployment type. Deployments you create using ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure 10.8 onward are considered V2 deployments or sites.

In previous versions of Cloud Builder, the base ArcGIS Enterprise deployment was accessed through a load balancer and reverse proxy, and each federated server had its own load balancer and reverse proxy. This is a legacy deployment pattern now referred to as a version 1 (V1) deployment or V1 site. You can continue to upgrade and use your V1 deployments, but they will appear on a different tab in Cloud Builder to help you differentiate and manage each type of deployment. Even if you upgrade a V1 deployment to 10.8, it is still a V1 deployment. Be aware that you cannot add federated servers to a V1 deployment using Cloud Builder 10.8.

Due to changes in tile cache data stores, V2 base ArcGIS Enterprise deployments do not automatically include a tile cache data store. That's because a highly available tile cache data store now requires at least three tile cache data store machines. To accommodate this, the Add Spatiotemporal Big Data Store Machines to the site option has been renamed to Add Data Store Machines to the site and expanded at 10.8 to allow you to add either a tile cache data store or spatiotemporal big data store to your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment.

Also note that due to the changes in architecture for a V2 deployment, there are additional manual steps required to use the webgisdr tool installed with Portal for ArcGIS to restore an ArcGIS Enterprise deployment. See this Esri technical article for more information.

You can continue to use the webgisdr tool to backup and restore V1 deployments.

Additional changes to ArcGIS Enterprise Cloud Builder for Microsoft Azure include the following:

  • You have the option to create a private IP address for the Azure Application Gateway.
  • When creating a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site or federating one with a V2 ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, you must specify a unique web context name. For example, in the following URL to access ArcGIS Server Manager for an ArcGIS Server site, mygisserver is the context: https://<DNS_name>.<region>.cloudapp.azure.com/mygisserver/manager.
  • You can use the 10.8 Cloud Builder to delete deployments you created with the current and previous versions of Cloud Builder.
  • As Microsoft now supports Azure Database for PostgreSQL in the Microsoft Azure Government cloud environment, you can now use Cloud Builder to register Azure Database for PostgreSQL with your ArcGIS Server sites in the Azure Government cloud.