Introduction to ArcGIS Velocity

ArcGIS Velocity is the real-time and big data processing and analysis capability of ArcGIS Online. It allows you to import, visualize, analyze, store, and use data from Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. High-velocity event data can be filtered, processed, and sent to multiple destinations, allowing you to connect virtually any type of streaming data and automatically alert personnel when specified conditions occur. You can also design analytic models to process high-volume historical data and gain insights into patterns, trends, and anomalies.

ArcGIS Velocity works with vector and tabular data and can receive real-time observations over HTTP, connect to IoT cloud providers such as Azure and Cisco, or consume from Kafka, MQTT, RabbitMQ, and other messaging technologies. It also works with historical information and can read existing ArcGIS feature layers as well as external big data sources such as Amazon S3.

ArcGIS Velocity tools can be used for various spatial analysis approaches: analyze patterns, find locations, manage data, summarize data, use proximity, and data enrichment. Whether you need to perform geofencing, detect incidents, run regression analysis on multiple datasets, or find areas of data clustering, there are many options to explore data.

All analysis is performed in the cloud. ArcGIS Velocity uses distributed processing to scale tasks, allowing you to import, analyze, and visualize large velocities and volumes of data. Results from the analysis can be stored as hosted feature layers, written to your cloud data stores, or disseminated through notifications and messaging systems.

To get started with Velocity, create roles and assign users in your ArcGIS Online organization that include privileges to create, review, edit, manage, publish real-time analysis, and publish big data analysis. Assign users to these roles, which will allow them to sign in to the ArcGIS Velocity application. For details, see Get started with ArcGIS Velocity.

Applicable workflows

ArcGIS Velocity is useful for workflows regarding observations from IoT devices and sensors, as well as for other sources of real-time and big data. It provides options to bring in and immediately visualize real-time information, as well as store observations over time. Velocity also allows you to build analytical processes to automate workflows and answer questions. Velocity provides many of the same capabilities as ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server and solves many of the same use cases as ArcGIS GeoEvent Server but provides these capabilities as a service in ArcGIS Online.

You can use ArcGIS Velocity for the following types of workflows:

  • Connect to IoT systems and visualize sensor observations.
  • Create a geofence around an area of interest to detect the spatial proximity of events.
  • Process data faster than with your existing tools and workflows.
  • Enrich and filter observations to focus on the most interesting event data.
  • Manage data in real-time, as a service.
  • Explore data to identify important patterns and trends.
  • Use spatial statistical analysis and machine learning tools suitable for large datasets.
  • Use cloud solutions instead of managing a multi-machine deployment for real-time and big data use cases.

Analysis examples

The following are examples of types of analysis you can perform with Velocity:

  • As a city GIS analyst, you can collect GPS data on all city vehicles, such as public works vehicles and snow plows, to see where vehicles have traveled, areas with less coverage, and when vehicles exceeded the speed limit.
  • As an electric utility operations officer, you can receive regular readings from smart meters, including indications of power outages, and automatically notify the closest field crew in the area.
  • As an environmental scientist, you can identify times and locations of high ozone levels across the country in a dataset of millions of static sensor reads.
  • As a supply chain analyst at an oil and gas company, you can connect to an automatic identification system (AIS) data feed to monitor your vessels, calculate expected arrival information, and understand when vessels enter areas of interest.