ArcGIS allows you to access data in your database or cloud data warehouse through web services. How you interact with the database depends on your role in your organization:
Database administrators
Database administrators configure and maintain the database or data warehouse and ensure users can access the database or data warehouse from ArcGIS.
To allow ArcGIS users to access the data they need, you must do the following:
- Be sure your organization is using a supported database or cloud data warehouse version.
- Supported cloud data warehouses and most databases that ArcGIS supports include a spatial data type automatically. Some databases do not, though, so be sure your database contains a spatial data type.
- Grant ArcGIS users the privileges they require to access the data.
- Work with the ArcGIS Server administrator to configure the ArcGIS Server site to connect to the database. For cloud data warehouses, work with the portal administrator to configure the hosting server to connect to the cloud data warehouse.
- If your users need geodatabase functionality, create a geodatabase in the database. You can create a geodatabase in the following databases:
When you have an enterprise geodatabase in the database, publishers can create additional types of web layers. See Enterprise geodatabases and ArcGIS Enterprise for more information.
Publishers
Publishers make data available through web services. To make the data in your business's database or cloud data warehouse available to others for viewing, author a map in ArcGIS Pro that contains the data and publish. If you're using database data and want others to edit it, you can publish a feature service that references the data in your database.
- As a publisher, register a database connection with the ArcGIS Server site.
- Create a map in ArcGIS Pro that includes the data you want to publish.
To provide read-only access to the data, publish a map service. To allow people to edit database data through a service, publish a feature service.
You can publish feature services from certain cloud data warehouses, but you cannot edit the data through the feature service.
For recommendations on authoring a map to publish a map service (map image layer) from ArcGIS Pro, see Author a multiscale map. For recommendations on authoring a map to publish a feature service, see Author maps to publish feature services.
- Configure ArcGIS Pro to publish to the correct ArcGIS Server site.
- When publishing from ArcGIS Pro to a federated ArcGIS Server site, sign in to the ArcGIS Enterprise portal with which the ArcGIS Server site is federated, and set the portal as the active portal.
- When publishing from ArcGIS Pro to a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site, add the site as a GIS server. Connect to the site with an account that has publishing privileges. This is not supported for data in a cloud data warehouse.
- Publish the data from the map. If you publish a feature service from database data, choose what editing operations to allow through the feature service.
See the help page for the type of service and the client you're using.
- Publish a map image layer from ArcGIS Pro.
- Publish a feature layer from ArcGIS Pro. To keep the data in your database, choose the Reference registered data option.
- Publish a map service (with or without the Feature capability enabled) from ArcGIS Pro to a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site.
If the ArcGIS Server site is federated with an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, a map service is created on the ArcGIS Server site and a map image layer item is added to the portal organization. For feature layers, a feature service is created on the ArcGIS Server site and a feature layer item is added to the portal organization.
You can sign in to your organization and update the details associated with these items. You can also share the layer if you did not do so when you published.
If your ArcGIS GIS Server sites are federated with an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, you can add a database connection to the portal as a data store item. If the database connection accesses a database or enterprise geodatabase, you can register the database connection with multiple federated GIS Server sites at once, and you can publish all the feature classes and tables to which you have access using default extents and symbology. If the database connection accesses a cloud data warehouse, you can register the database connection with the hosting server only. All publishing for data stores that access cloud data warehouses takes place from ArcGIS Pro.
You cannot publish image services from a cloud data warehouse or database, but if the database contains a geodatabase, you can publish imagery data as an image service. However, although you can store raster data in a geodatabase, it is not the recommended storage method. You cannot publish imagery from a database data store item in the portal. For information about publishing an imagery layer from ArcGIS Pro, see Share a web imagery layer.
Editors and viewers
Editors maintain data through feature services and viewers consume web services in maps and apps. The easiest way for you to access the services that publishers make available to you is through the ArcGIS Enterprise portal. If the data was published to a federated server, a layer item already exists in the organization for that service. If the data was published to a stand-alone ArcGIS Server site, you can add the service as an item to your organization. From there, you can create maps to view the data. You can then use the maps in apps that provide the tools you and others in your organization need to interact with the data.
If the feature layer owner enabled editing and you have privileges to edit, you can edit the feature layer data in a portal map viewer, ArcGIS apps, configurable apps that organization members create with ArcGIS Configurable Apps templates or ArcGIS Experience Builder, and custom apps developers create for you.