Building an ArcGIS Server site on Amazon EC2

NoteNote:

For help with versions earlier than the most recent service pack, click here.

ArcGIS Server Cloud Builder on Amazon Web Services is a downloadable desktop application that helps you create an ArcGIS Server site in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). The steps below explain how to create a site using Cloud Builder:

Steps:
  1. Download, install, and launch ArcGIS Server Cloud Builder on Amazon Web Services.

    You can access the Cloud Builder download when logged in to the Esri Customer Care website. It is listed with your other Esri software downloads. You need to have purchased ArcGIS for Server before you can see the download.

  2. Log in using the Access Key and Secret Access Key of your Amazon account.

    Your Access Key and Secret Access Key are discoverable through the AWS Management Console. Log in to the console, click your account name at the top of the console, and click Security Credentials. (You may be prompted to log in again.) The keys are available on the Access Keys tab.

    If the ArcGIS for Server Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) have not been shared with your Amazon account, ArcGIS Server Cloud Builder on Amazon Web Services prevents you from continuing past this point. Contact Esri Customer Service to get the AMIs shared with your Amazon account.

  3. Click the Sites tab and click Create Site.
  4. Type a name and description for your site. The name will be applied on various resources that the app creates for you in Amazon EC2 so that you can easily identify them.
  5. Use the Software drop-down list to choose the operating system on which you want to run your site. You can alternatively choose to use a site template that you've previously configured with your own software, data, and services.
  6. Browse to the Esri license file (with extension .prvc) that should be used to license your site. If you need help creating a .prvc file, see Frequently asked questions.

    When you are finished applying the above settings, click Next.

  7. Choose the Amazon EC2 region to be used for your site.

    A region represents an Amazon data center complex in a certain area of the world. A site cannot be distributed across regions, although you can maintain a second site in an alternate region for redundancy.

  8. Choose whether you want to launch your site in Amazon EC2 or Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud).

    If you choose to launch in Amazon EC2, then you also need to choose an availability zone. These represent physically isolated data centers within regions. You can spread a site across zones for higher fault tolerance. This is accomplished by choosing No preference for the zone, thereby allowing EC2 to pick a zone for each instance (virtual machine) that is launched in your site.

    Amazon VPC is a mechanism for configuring or extending a private network within EC2. To choose this option, you need to have configured a VPC subnet in an Amazon EC2 region and availability zone. Cloud Builder detects the existing subnets for your account and displays them in the Subnet ID drop-down list.

  9. Choose a key pair that you want to use for this site. A key pair file allows you to get the administrator passwords of the EC2 instances participating in your site. If you ever want to log in to one of the EC2 instances in your site, you will need this key pair file.

    You can use an existing key pair or create a new one.

    • If you use an existing key pair, select one from the drop-down list. This list only contains key pairs from the region in which you are working.
    • If you create a new key pair, a .pem file is placed in your Windows Documents folder under ArcGISCloudBuilder. For example, the path to your key pair file might look like C:\Users\username\Documents\ArcGISCloudBuilder\arcgis-TestSite.pem. You should move this file to a secure location and keep it available for future use.

    When you are finished applying the above settings, click Next.

  10. Choose the instance type to be used in your site.
    CautionCaution:

    The instance type, as well as the minimum and maximum number of instances (set later in Cloud Builder), can greatly affect the amount of money that you are charged by AWS. Before choosing these numbers, carefully estimate your site usage and the server power you'll need to accommodate that usage.

    Micro instances are not available because they do not meet the minimum memory requirement for ArcGIS Server.

  11. Choose the size of the Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume to attach to each GIS server instance in your site. This will be visible as a local disk drive to which you can upload your data. Your ArcGIS Server configuration store and server directories will also be placed on this drive on one of the instances.

    Also choose whether the drive should be deleted when the site is terminated. When you preserve a drive, it can potentially be attached to other sites in the future.

    The next two steps apply to ArcGIS for Server enterprise licensed sites only.

  12. Choose the number of EC2 instances that will participate in your site.

    The Number of instances property represents the minimum number of instances that will be launched when the site is created. Optionally check Enable auto-scaling to put in effect certain triggers that launch or terminate new EC2 instances based on CPU usage.

    LicenseLicense:

    You must not run ArcGIS Server on a greater number of CPU cores than you have licensed with Esri, regardless of whether the cores are in the cloud or on premises. Also be aware that you are responsible for all Amazon Web Services charges you incur for EC2 instances and other resources launched using Cloud Builder.

  13. If you enabled auto-scaling in the previous step, set the triggers for increasing or decreasing the number of instances in your site. The increase and decrease are determined by the percentage of CPU usage on your instances over a period of time.

    For example, if you keep the default settings, when your site experiences over 80 percent CPU usage for five consecutive minutes, a new GIS server instance will be added to the site (unless you have reached the maximum number of instances you specified). When your CPU usage goes below 20 percent for five consecutive minutes, a GIS server instance will be removed from your site and terminated (unless your site has been reduced to the original number of instances you specified).

    Regardless of CPU usage, the site will never launch more instances than you specify in the Maximum number of instances property.

    Amazon CloudWatch is the service that provides CPU monitoring on your instances and makes the auto-scaling triggers possible. On your Amazon bill, you will see an extra fee applied for the CloudWatch service.

    When you are finished applying the above settings, click Next.

  14. Choose the parameters for including a geodatabase with your site. If you include a geodatabase, you can select the database management system (DBMS) and whether you want to run the geodatabase on a dedicated EC2 instance (in other words, an instance separate from ArcGIS Server). Following are your choices:
    • If you are using an ArcGIS for Server Workgroup license, you can choose to create a site that includes Microsoft SQL Server Express on an ArcGIS Server EC2 instance.
    • If you are using an ArcGIS for Server Enterprise license with the ArcGIS for Server (Windows) AMI, you can choose to create a site that includes Microsoft SQL Server Express on an ArcGIS Server EC2 instance, Microsoft SQL Server Standard on an ArcGIS Server EC2 instance, or Microsoft SQL Server Standard on its own dedicated EC2 instance.
    • If you are using an ArcGIS for Server Enterprise license with the ArcGIS for Server (Ubuntu Linux) AMI, you can choose to create a site that includes PostgreSQL on an ArcGIS Server EC2 instance or PostgreSQL on its own dedicated EC2 instance.

    If you choose to run the geodatabase on a dedicated instance, you can choose the instance type, the size of the EBS volume that will hold your data, and whether the volume should be deleted at the time the site is terminated. Be aware that all of the above choices can affect the amount charged to your Amazon account.

    When you are finished applying the above settings, click Next.

  15. Type the user name and password of the primary site administrator account that you want to use for your ArcGIS Server site.

    The primary site administrator is not an operating system account; it is an account built into ArcGIS Server that you create at this time. You'll use this account for logging in to Manager and making connections to your server until you are able to further configure security on your site.

  16. Choose whether to install an SSL certificate when the site is created. This allows encrypted communication with your site. See Setting up SSL using Cloud Builder to learn more about this option.

    When you are finished applying the above settings, click Next.

  17. Review the information about the site that will be created. To go back and make changes, click Back. Otherwise, if you are ready to create the site, click Finish.

    It can take a while for the site to be created. A series of messages will appear explaining what the application is doing while it is creating the site.

    At this point, ArcGIS Server Cloud Builder on Amazon Web Services creates a number of resources on EC2 for which you will immediately begin incurring charges. This includes one or more EC2 instances with Amazon CloudWatch enabled, EBS volumes, and an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB). To learn more about the costs of these resources, see http://aws.amazon.com/pricing/ec2.

  18. When the site has been created, return to the My Sites panel and click the name of your site. The bar expands and displays the URL that you can use to access ArcGIS Server Manager in a web browser.

If you want to log in to one of your instances, you need to add a rule to your security group permitting remote desktop access. (A security group is created for you when you create the site, but it does not have remote desktop access enabled.) You also need to get the Windows password for your instance. See the following topics for help:

12/10/2013