ArcGIS Enterprise supports various ways to publish data. By publishing data, you make it available to other members of your ArcGIS Enterprise organization for use in maps and apps. The primary ways to publish content are from ArcGIS Pro and the ArcGIS Enterprise portal. You also publish content as part of workflows in the portal or in ArcGIS apps. For example, the standard feature analysis tools in Map Viewer create feature layers that store the results of analysis.
As a publisher, it is important to consider the functionality you want available for your web services and layers before you publish. The necessary functionality may vary from service to service. It is also important to consider how people will use the services and where the data will be stored.
When you publish, you can copy the data to ArcGIS Enterprise—which results in hosted layers and data managed by ArcGIS—or you can reference data in its original location.
Publish from ArcGIS Pro
ArcGIS Pro provides a set of options for publishing. In ArcGIS Pro, you decide what functionality to include in the web layer, and this dictates the type of layer you publish. For details, see Introduction to sharing web layers in the ArcGIS Pro help.
When you publish from ArcGIS Pro, you can copy all data or reference registered data. By copying all data when you publish a feature layer, ArcGIS takes a snapshot of the source data, copies it to the relational ArcGIS Data Store, and creates a hosted feature layer item in the portal and a service on the portal's hosting ArcGIS Server site. When you copy all data when publishing a tile layer, ArcGIS takes a snapshot of the data and creates a cache on the portal's hosting ArcGIS Server site that populates a cached map service and a tile layer item in the portal. You can share the layer items to allow others to find and use them.
If you publish using the option to reference registered data, the data stays in place in your registered, user-managed data store, and the service and layer item in the portal reference the data in the user-managed data source. You must register the data store with a federated ArcGIS Server site to publish a layer that references registered data.
Publish from an ArcGIS Enterprise portal
You can also publish data from the ArcGIS Enterprise portal interface. This allows you to create web layers without requiring additional ArcGIS client software. The following are some of the ways you can publish data as web layers from the portal:
- Upload files—such as a comma-separated values (.csv) file, zipped shapefile, or zipped file geodatabase—and publish hosted feature layers from the file's contents.
- Add a data store item for folders (file shares), cloud storage locations, databases, and enterprise geodatabases and publish. You can create imagery layers from image files in folders or cloud storage locations, and bulk publish feature layers and map image layers from accessible feature classes and tables in databases and enterprise geodatabases. You can also publish tile layers, vector tile layers, or scene layers that reference existing caches stored in cloud storage locations.
- Use a template to create a hosted feature layer.
- Publish a WFS layer or a hosted tile layer from a hosted feature layer.
- Publish data as a by-product of a workflow in your portal, such as running standard feature analysis tools, GeoAnalytics Tools, or raster analysis tools in Map Viewer.
Publish from other applications
There are many other applications that allow you to publish data directly or that publish content as a by-product of larger workflows. These applications all create hosted feature layers. Examples include ArcGIS for Office and ArcGIS Workforce. See Common clients of ArcGIS Enterprise for a list of additional apps that publish to ArcGIS Enterprise portals.
Data stores and ArcGIS Enterprise
For workflows that reference registered data, you must first register the data store with one or more of the ArcGIS Server sites that are federated with the ArcGIS Enterprise portal.
See the following for more information:
- Add a data store item in the portal.
- Manage registered data stores in ArcGIS Pro.
- Register a raster store using ArcGIS Server Manager.