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What is ArcGIS Enterprise?

ArcGIS Enterprise is comprised of a portal, server, data store, and two web adaptors.

ArcGIS Enterprise puts collaboration and flexibility at the center of your organization's GIS. It pairs industry-leading mapping and analytics capabilities with a dedicated Web GIS infrastructure to organize and share your work on any device, anywhere, at any time.

Supported environments

ArcGIS Enterprise gives you complete control over your deployment:

This flexibility unlocks new capabilities and distributes your deployment across the infrastructure that best supports your organization's needs. Your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment can also be connected or disconnected from the open Internet.

ArcGIS Enterprise software components

  • ArcGIS Server powers mapping and analysis in your GIS.
  • Portal for ArcGIS enables you to create, share, and manage maps, apps, and spatial data with collaborators in your organization.
  • ArcGIS Data Store provides nimble data storage for the hosting server used with your deployment.
  • ArcGIS Web Adaptor integrates ArcGIS Server and Portal for ArcGIS with your existing web servers and your organization's security infrastructure.

A base ArcGIS Enterprise deployment is the minimum setup, combining all four ArcGIS Enterprise components. See Base ArcGIS Enterprise deployment for details.

After the base deployment is installed, you can begin using ArcGIS Enterprise, or configure additional capabilities.

ArcGIS Enterprise licensing

ArcGIS Enterprise is licensed per user and by system capacity. Users are licensed based on user types, providing secure access to information and content creation capabilities. See user types, roles, and privileges for detailed information on user types and capabilities.

ArcGIS Server roles

ArcGIS Server can be licensed in a variety of roles, depending on the capabilities you want to enable for your deployment. Server licensing roles define the capabilities of each ArcGIS Enterprise server machine or site. For a full description of options, see the ArcGIS Enterprise functionality matrix.

ArcGIS GIS Server brings GIS resources such as map services, feature services, and geoprocessing services to users as layers in your portal. This role is the foundation for your Web GIS, where the GIS Server acts as the portal's hosting server. You can license ArcGIS GIS Server as Advanced, Standard, or Basic. All editions of ArcGIS Enterprise include an ArcGIS Server licensed in a GIS Server role. ArcGIS GIS Server also offers additional extensions. See ArcGIS GIS Server capabilities and extensions for details.

Note:
The Basic edition of GIS Server can only enable enterprise geodatabases, and cannot be used as a hosting server for a Web GIS.

Add more capabilities to the baseArcGIS Enterprise deployment by licensing additional server roles:

  • ArcGIS Image Server publishes image services for real-time visualization and performs distributed analytics on raster data.
  • ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server performs distributed analytics on large volumes of tabular and feature data.
  • ArcGIS GeoEvent Server integrates real-time, event-based data streams, as from Internet of Things sources, into your GIS.
  • ArcGIS Notebook Server hosts ArcGIS Notebooks, which combine code, real-time visualizations and maps, and data tools to facilitate powerful data science.
  • ArcGIS Business Analyst Server hosts Business Analyst capabilities for advanced geoenrichment and location-driven market insights.

To apply these ArcGIS Server roles, install the ArcGIS Server component and use the appropriate license file to enable the role. Multiple server license roles can be applied to the same machine or site as the base ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, or they can be deployed independently of the base deployment. To ensure enough machine resources will be available to support server operations, review the system requirements for each server licensing role. It is generally recommended to deploy separate ArcGIS Server sites for each role. See About ArcGIS Server licensing roles for more information.