ArcGIS Enterprise empowers your organization to create and share geographic information, maps, and applications, and to perform geographic analyses in a collaborative environment. Because the content and tools in your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment is often critical to your organization's functions, you should ensure your deployment is available to your users as much as possible, with minimal data loss in the event of a disaster. You can achieve this goal with a disaster recovery or failover strategy.
Experienced IT administrators can implement a number of options based on their organization's environment and specific needs. There are many ways to implement disaster recovery strategies, including using tools provided with ArcGIS Enterprise or third-party tools, such as VM snapshots. The workflow for the tools provided with ArcGIS Enterprise is described below.
Note:
Using third-party tools requires a deep understanding of those tools and how they interact with the software, which is outside the scope of Esri Support and this documentation. When using a third-party tool, consult the user documentation from the company of your particular tool.
The following options are available using ArcGIS Enterprise tools:
- Maintain backups of your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, so you can restore it when a disaster occurs using the WebGIS DR tool.
- Implement a replicated ArcGIS Enterprise deployment for disaster recovery using the WebGIS DR tool.
- Configure a highly available system by implementing a highly available architecture for each software component.
- How much downtime (if any) is acceptable?
- How much data loss (if any) is acceptable?
- How many resources, such as hardware, licensing, and staff, can your organization devote to data loss and downtime prevention?
- Does your organization require deployment in two geographic locations? For example, do you need to duplicate your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment in two geographically separate data centers so it is available even when a natural disaster occurs in one area?
Restore ArcGIS Enterprise backups
If your organization can tolerate some amount of downtime and data loss, you can create backups of your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, and restore the backups in the event of a failure or corruption. For example, if one machine in your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment fails or if someone mistakenly deletes many portal items, GIS services, or data, you can restore the deployment. The amount of downtime and data loss you incur depends on how frequently you create backups and how much data, items, and services you have in your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment. As the amount increases, so does the time to restore.
| Acceptable downtime | Acceptable data loss | Resources | Geographic redundancy required | Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Approximately 1 day | Approximately 1 day | Low Hardware for a single ArcGIS Enterprise deployment (1+ machines), media to store backups, and development and testing of a recovery plan are required. | No | Implement a single ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, create backups daily using the webgisdr utility, and maintain the backups in a secure location. |
Approximately 1.5 hours | Approximately 1 hour | Low Hardware for a single ArcGIS Enterprise deployment (1+ machines), media to store backups, and development and testing of a recovery plan are required. | No | Implement a single ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, create backups hourly using the webgisdr utility, maintain backups in a secure location, and actively monitor the deployment. |
For more information, see ArcGIS Enterprise backups.
Maintain a replicated deployment
If the tolerance for downtime is less and you have sufficient machines, you can configure a primary ArcGIS Enterprise deployment and an identical, isolated standby deployment. Use the webgisdr utility to export from the primary, move the exported file to the isolated standby deployment, and import the file.
You can set up your primary and standby deployments in the same or different geographic locations. When the primary and standby are in different geographic locations, the time to complete the replication process will likely increase, but your deployment is protected from regional disasters.
| Acceptable downtime | Acceptable data loss | Resources | Geographic redundancy required | Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Approximately 1.5 hours | Approximately 1 day | Medium Hardware for two ArcGIS Enterprise deployments (2+ machines), method and staff to move exports from primary to standby, and development and testing of the recovery plan are required. | No | Configure primary and standby deployments, use the webgisdr utility to replicate the deployment from the primary to the standby once a day, and actively monitor the primary deployment. |
Approximately 1.5 hours | Approximately 1 hour | Medium Hardware for two ArcGIS Enterprise deployments (2+ machines), method and staff to move exports from primary to standby, and development and testing of the recovery plan are required. | No | Configure primary and standby deployments, use the webgisdr utility to replicate the deployment from the primary to the standby every hour, and actively monitor the primary deployment. |
Approximately 1.5 to 2 hours | Approximately 1 hour | Medium Hardware for two ArcGIS Enterprise deployments (2+ machines), method and staff to move exports from primary to remote standby, and development and testing of the recovery plan are required. | Yes | Configure primary and remote standby deployments, use the webgisdr utility to replicate the deployment from the primary to a remote standby every hour, and actively monitor the deployment. |
For more information, see Disaster recovery and replication.
Configure a highly available ArcGIS Enterprise deployment
If your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment needs to be available 99 percent or more of the time, if you cannot tolerate the loss of more than an hour's worth of data, and if you can devote a large number of resources, you can implement a highly available ArcGIS Enterprise deployment. In this case, you configure connected primary and secondary deployments that automatically fail over in the event of the failure of any one component.
You can use a highly available ArcGIS Enterprise deployment in combination with a replicated deployment if you require geographic redundancy.
| Acceptable downtime | Acceptable data loss | Resources | Geographic redundancy required | Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
A few minutes | A few minutes | High Hardware and licensing for two ArcGIS Enterprise deployments (7+ machines) are required. | No | Configure connected primary and standby deployments. |
A few minutes to approximately 1 hour, depending on the nature of deployment failure | Approximately 1 hour | High Hardware and licensing for two ArcGIS Enterprise deployments (14+ machines) are required. | Yes | Configure connected primary and secondary deployments, and use the webgisdr utility to replicate hourly to an identical primary and secondary deployment in another location. |
For more information, see Configure highly available ArcGIS Enterprise.