The ArcGIS Well-Architected Framework and Architecture Center website exist to help organizations design, deploy, and operate ArcGIS as an enterprise system. Implementing enterprise systems in today’s IT landscape requires context and expertise, and involves many organization and system-specific decisions and processes. With this in mind, this website attempts to provide foundational information about ArcGIS, and support organizations in making informed decisions when implementing systems with ArcGIS.
In this site, Esri is sharing its collective experience from building GIS systems over the last fifty years. More specifically, this site aims to share those experiences as patterns and best practices with IT professionals, an audience that is increasingly involved in the design and operation of ArcGIS systems. The ArcGIS Well-Architected Framework leads with IT-based terminology where possible and gradually introduces GIS concepts and language, while creating a set of foundational system patterns that can be used to design systems for your organization. This site is not intended to replace or overlap with ArcGIS product documentation and often links to relevant documentation topics throughout.
While the primary audience of this site is intended to be IT professionals, architects, and support teams, GIS professionals will also benefit from the topics covered here, as they increasingly are asked to learn and understand IT principles and concepts as part of their work in modern enterprise GIS systems.
The ArcGIS Well-Architected Framework, including the system patterns and the architecture practices topics, is also designed to be relevant across all of the products that comprise ArcGIS and all industries that use ArcGIS. The content within will evolve and be updated over time as new patterns are identified, new IT or GIS topics grow in importance, and as ArcGIS and Esri technology evolves.