What is ArcGIS Server on Amazon EC2?
ArcGIS Server on Amazon EC2 allows you to deploy ESRI ArcGIS Server on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In this type of deployment, ArcGIS Server runs on Amazon's hardware, which you administer through Web services.
Tip:Visit the ArcGIS Server Help if you need general information on how to use ArcGIS Server.
Advantages of deploying ArcGIS Server on Amazon EC2 include the following:
No installation required—You don't have to install ArcGIS Server yourself. Instead, you use an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that already has ArcGIS Server installed and preconfigured. Once you deploy the AMI, you are ready to start creating and using services.
Scalable on demand—If you need more computing power, you can launch additional EC2 instances, which you can think of as virtual servers on Amazon's cloud that are all created from the same parent AMI. Creating new instances can even be done programmatically in response to usage statistics. New instances can be created in a matter of minutes, allowing your ArcGIS Server to gracefully respond to abrupt spikes in traffic.
Amazon provides a load balancer that you can use to route traffic to the different instances. When you no longer need the instances, you can destroy them and incur no further charges for them.
No hardware infrastructure to maintain—Deploying ArcGIS Server on Amazon EC2 requires no special hardware; you just have to be able to connect to the Internet. You create and manage your EC2 instances through the AWS Management Console, a Web application provided by Amazon. You connect to your machines through Windows Remote Desktop to set up your data, services, and applications.
Deploying ArcGIS Server in a cloud environment allows you to use as many or as few computing resources as necessary without committing to a long-term purchase of hardware or other IT infrastructure.
About this help
This help system focuses on how to deploy ArcGIS Server and create enterprise geodatabases on the Amazon cloud. It also includes special topics about maintaining and scaling your deployment on Amazon.
If you need general information about ArcGIS Server or ArcSDE, you should visit the ArcGIS Server Help. The ArcGIS Server Help describes how to publish services, configure security users and roles, create Web applications, build geodatabases, and so on.
Links to the ArcGIS Server Help are provided throughout this help system where appropriate.