Replication to an Amazon EC2 instance using geodata services

If you are making edits to your GIS data, you can edit the data locally, then use replication to synchronize the data through a geodata service published from your enterprise geodatabase (EGDB) on Amazon EC2.

Replication and synchronization performed directly from your local geodatabase to your enterprise geodatabase on Amazon EC2 would take a great deal of time. For that reason, you should do one of the following instead:

• Replicate locally, move the replica to the cloud, publish a geodata service, then synchronize data changes through the service.
• Publish a geodata service of your EGDB, replicate your local geodatabase with the geodata service as the target for the replica, then synchronize data changes through the service.

When you replicate locally and move the resultant file (or files) to the cloud, you are only restricted by the method of data transfer you use to move the files.

If you have a small amount of data (4 MB or less), the second option is often the simplest one, but could be limited by connection time outs or IIS data transfer limitations.

Be aware that creating or synchronizing a replica with a geodata service over the Internet as a result of an ArcGIS Server or HTTP server timeout. The default settings for these are 10 minutes. Therefore, if the updategram takes longer than 10 minutes to send to the geodatabase on Amazon EC2, the synchronization will fail.

You should also be aware of any restrictions that exist when replicating specific types of data. See the following topics for more information:

Replication and related dataReplication and raster dataReplication and topologyReplication and geometric networksReplication and terrains, network datasets, parcel fabrics, and representations

Use a geodata service and a disconnected replica

There are several options for setting up a disconnected replica from your on-premises ArcSDE geodatabase to an enterprise geodatabase on Amazon EC2. For all the following options, you create a local replica, move the replica file to your enterprise geodatabase instance server, load the data into your enterprise geodatabase, and publish a geodata service through which you can synchronize edits from your local geodatabase to your enterprise geodatabase on Amazon EC2. The files you could use to move the replica include the following:

• An XML document—You can replicate a dataset from your local ArcSDE geodatabase to a zipped XML document using the Create Replica wizard in ArcMap. Zipped XML documents transfer one dataset at a time. If you are replicating only a small amount of simple data, you could replicate multiple datasets to an XML document (unzipped). When you import the file to your geodatabase on Amazon EC2, the imported data is automatically registered as versioned and marked as replicated.
• A transport file geodatabase—A transport file geodatabase is a file geodatabase designed specifically to transport replicated data. Neither the Create Replica wizard nor the Create Replica geoprocessing tool can output to a transport file geodatabase; therefore, you must use custom ArcObjects code to generate a transport file geodatabase. See How to create a replica in a disconnected environment in the ArcGIS .NET ArcObjects help for more information.
  Tip:

  An ArcGIS Desktop add-in is available from the ArcGIS Resource Center that you can install to create transport file geodatabases.

• A PostgreSQL .dump file—You would use a PostgreSQL .dump file to transfer your geodatabase data if either of the following are true:
  • You want to move all your data into the enterprise geodatabase instance.
  • Your local geodatabase is already in the same release of PostgreSQL as the one used in your enterprise geodatabase instance.

  If your local ArcSDE geodatabase is not already in PostgreSQL, you can temporarily set up an ArcSDE for PostgreSQL geodatabase locally, to which you can replicate your data, then create your backup to move to your enterprise geodatabase instance.

Use a geodata service and a connected replica

You can create a geodata service from your enterprise geodatabase on Amazon EC2, replicate data from your local geodatabase to the geodata service, then synchronize changes through the geodata service. This is useful if your local geodatabase or the amount of data you are replicating and the updategrams generated during synchronization are small (less than 4 MB).

See Using a geodata service and a connected replica for instructions.