Listed below are frequently asked questions about ArcGIS Velocity. If you encounter an issue when working with Velocity, refer to the troubleshooting page for recommended solutions.
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 on 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 app that allows users to create the following:
- Feeds—Real-time data ingestion and visualization
- Real-time analytics—Real-time processing to identify an activity of interest and take appropriate action.
- Big data analytics—Big data processing that supports ArcGIS GeoEvent Server and other big data tools to identify data patterns and trends.
- Feature and map layers—High-volume data visualization through 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 as well as 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.
Use cases include the following:
- Connect to IoT systems to visualize sensor observations.
- Geofence areas of interest to detect spatial proximity of events.
- Process high-velocity and high-volume data.
- Enrich and filter observations to focus on the most interesting events.
- Manage data as a service when data has grown in real-time.
- Identify important incidents and trends.
- Use spatial statistical analysis and machine learning tools with large datasets.
- For real-time and big data workflows, choose cloud solutions rather than self-hosted multiple-machine deployment management.
There is no setup necessary to start using Velocity. When you purchase Velocity, you choose the cloud region in which it runs and receive access to the application after 30 to 60 minutes.
As an organization administrator, once you receive access to the Velocity app, you can create roles and assign users to allow users with the necessary privileges to create real-time or big data tasks.
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Velocity differs from GeoEvent Server in many ways, including product capabilities and business model. On a high level, GeoEvent Server is self-hosted software, while Velocity is a software as a service (SaaS). Velocity is also different in the following ways:
- It has built-in high-availability and disaster recovery.
- It is deployed automatically, requiring only 30 to 60 minutes from activation to get access.
- Data stored by Velocity is stored in the cloud.
- It is not directly extensible due to its nature as SaaS.
- It is geared toward operations and geospatial analysts as opposed to GIS administrators.
- It is offered through a subscription as opposed to a software license.
Velocity allows you to connect to streaming or collected data sources from a variety of systems for analysis and visualization. Field Maps is a mobile solution that allows you to capture the locations of mobile users, monitor where they are, and analyze the data collected where they go. Velocity can be used to perform real-time or batch analysis on this data such as geofencing employee locations using 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 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 Location 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.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 manages and optimizes data that requires updates on a less frequent basis.
Registering an ArcGIS API key does not delete or replace an existing refresh token. You can configure Velocity to use a refresh token, an ArcGIS API key, or both. You can expect the following behaviors with an ArcGIS API key:
- When you register an ArcGIS API key with Velocity, an existing refresh token (if present) does not get replaced.
- If you have both an ArcGIS API key and a refresh token registered, Velocity uses the ArcGIS API key to start items.
- After you register or update an ArcGIS API key in Velocity, you need to restart your feeds, real-time analytics, and big data analytics to use the new key.
- If you have items already running when you register an ArcGIS API key, those items are not impacted and continue running as expected. If those items are stopped and restarted, they will use the ArcGIS API key.
- Log messages on the feed and analytics indicate whether an ArcGIS API key or a refresh token is being used.
You can set the expiration date of the ArcGIS API key when creating the API key in ArcGIS Online. The minimum expiration date is one day, and the maximum is one year. It is recommended that you use an expiration date of one year if possible.
If the ArcGIS API key expires while you have running items, Velocity attempts to fall back to using a refresh token if one is available. When this happens, the following occur:
- Velocity shows log messages indicating that the existing ArcGIS API key has expired or is invalid. To remove these messages, you can register a new ArcGIS API key with Velocity or remove the ArcGIS API key that is registered with Velocity. For more information about how to update the ArcGIS API key, refer to the How do I update the API key? section below. After registering a new ArcGIS API key, you must restart your feeds, real-time analytics, and big data analytics so they use the new key.
- When Velocity falls back from using an ArcGIS API key to a refresh token, there is a possibility of data loss because Velocity may not be able to access resources it needs during this period.
In ArcGIS Online, on the Overview tab, choose the Regenerate API key option from the Credentials section. After confirming the new expiration date, set a new expiration value. Once the API key is regenerated, copy the value, and register the key with ArcGIS Online.
Learn more about how to update the ArcGIS API key in Velocity