Listed below are frequently asked questions about ArcGIS Velocity. If you encounter an issue when working with Velocity, see Troubleshoot for recommended solutions.
ArcGIS Velocity is the real-time and big data processing and analysis capability of ArcGIS Online. It allows you to ingest, visualize, analyze, store, and act upon data from Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. High-velocity event data can be filtered, processed, and sent to multiple destinations, allowing you to connect to 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.
Velocity includes an application that allows users to create:
- Feeds—Real-time data ingestion and visualization
- Real-time analytics—Real-time processing to identify an activity of interest and take appropriate action (similar to ArcGIS GeoEvent Server)
- Big data analytics—Big data processing that supports GeoAnalytics Server and other big data tools to identify data patterns and trends
- Feature and map layers—High-volume data visualization via on-the-fly aggregations
- Stream layers—High-velocity, live data visualization
Velocity is useful for workflows dealing with observations received from IoT devices and sensors but also for other sources of real-time and big data. It provides ways to ingest 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. Overall, Velocity provides many of the same capabilities and solves many of the same use cases as ArcGIS GeoEvent Server and GeoAnalytics Server, but provides these capabilities as a service on ArcGIS Online.
Use cases include the following:
- Connecting to IoT systems to visualize sensor observations.
- Geofencing areas of interest to detect spatial proximity of events.
- Processing high-velocity and high-volume data.
- Enriching and filtering observations to focus on the most interesting events.
- Managing data as a service when data has grown in real-time.
- Identifying important incidents and trends.
- Using spatial statistical analysis and machine learning tools with large datasets.
- For real-time and big data workflows, choosing cloud solutions over managing multiple-machine deployments self hosted.
There is no setup necessary to get started using Velocity. When you purchase Velocity, you choose a cloud region in which it will run and receive access to the application after 30 to 60 minutes.
As an organization administrator, once you receive access to the application, see Create roles and assign users to learn how to enable users with the necessary privileges to create real-time or big data tasks.
Evaluation options for Velocity are currently being developed. To stay up-to-date on product and release plans, sign up at Esri.com.
ArcGIS Velocity differs from ArcGIS GeoEvent Server and ArcGIS GeoAnalytics Server in many ways, including product capabilities and business model. On a high level, GeoEvent Server and GeoAnalytics Server are self hosted software, while Velocity is a software-as-a-service (SaaS). Other differences include the following:
- Velocity has built-in high availability and disaster recovery.
- Velocity is deployed automatically, taking only 30-60 minutes to get access.
- Data stored by Velocity is stored in the cloud.
- Velocity is not directly extensible due to its nature as a SaaS.
- Velocity is geared toward operations and geospatial analysts as opposed to GIS administrators.
- Velocity is offered via a subscription as opposed to a software license.
ArcGIS Velocity allows you to connect to streaming or collected data sources from a variety of systems for analysis and visualization. ArcGIS Field Maps is a mobile solution that allows you to capture the locations of mobile users, monitor where they are, and analyze where they've been. Velocity can be used to perform real-time or batch analysis on this data such as geofencing employee locations against work assignments, reconstructing employee tracks, and assessing coverage of operational areas. To work with data from Field Maps, configure a feed or a data source to read from one of your organization's track views.
There are certain similarities between ArcGIS Data Pipelines and ArcGIS Velocity in ArcGIS Online. Both applications allow you to connect to external data sources and import the data into ArcGIS Online for use across the ArcGIS Platform. However, they serve distinct purposes. Velocity is specifically designed for real-time and big data processing, efficiently handling high-speed data streams from sensors and similar sources. It also enables analytics such as geofencing, incident detection, and pattern analysis. On the other hand, ArcGIS Data Pipelines is primarily a data integration application that focuses on data engineering tasks, particularly for non-sensor-based data streams. While Velocity excels in handling real-time data, ArcGIS Data Pipelines is more geared toward managing and optimizing data that requires updates on a less frequent basis.