We just completed a major upgrade to the GIS platform at gis.arkansas.gov. Most of this upgrade was designed to improve system performance and reduce operating cost. We made the mistake of not providing advanced notice of this planned upgrade. If you haven’t noticed any issues then we did it correctly. If you did encounter problems then we apologize for not letting you know prior to the upgrade. We learned our lesson.

The upgrade was threefold, we scaled out our Amazon Web Services architecture so that our GIS Server and Web Server and our Image Server and Database Server have their own resources. This need was identified to ensure that one particular server role did not degrade the functionality of the rest due to resource consumption.

Additionally, we’ve upgraded our ArcServer product from 10.2.2 to 10.5 which allows us to better leverage more cost effective cloud storage for our Imagery Service offerings. This fact becomes significantly more important in the coming months as we begin accepting delivery of the 1 foot statewide and 6 inch imagery that Sanborn collected this past winter.

Last but not least we’ve downscaled our FME Server, this is the product that runs the platform’s clip, zip, and ship functionality. This move is designed to reduce subscription costs without reducing the platform’s ability to quickly and efficiently distribute tailored clearinghouse data.

With all this being said please check any application or automation that uses any aspect of the Arkansas Spatial Data Infrastructure (ASDI), the platform formerly known as Geostor, to ensure everything is working normally. For the client, that this migration caught off guard please accept our apologies for any and all inconvenience our initial failure of communication may have caused.

Any questions, concerns, or comments can be directed to communication@arkansasgisoffice.org