Archive for September, 2015
HowTo: Run ‘ArcGIS for Server Advanced Enterprise’ (10.3.1) on Amazon EC2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (7)
The talks on ArcGIS Server at ESRI Health GIS were fun, but I wanted more – specifically, to install and administer its latest release on Amazon Web Services, all via the trusted command line. Here’s how I did that:
To follow along, get an EDN license and an AWS account. Especially, if you have been in the industry for long, there’s no good excuse to not have those with the biggest companies in GIS and da Cloud (and while you are at it, get MapBox and CartoDB accounts too).
$ ssh -i "key.pem" ec2-user@#.#.#.#.compute.amazonaws.com
$ cat /etc/redhat-release
> Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.1 (Maipo)
$ sudo yum upgrade
$ sudo yum update
$ sudo yum install emacs
$ sudo emacs ~/.bashrc
force_color_prompt=yes
$ df -h
> ...
$ lsblk
> NAME SIZE TYPE MOUNTPOINT
> xvda 20G disk
> |_xvda2 6G part /
$ sudo yum install gdisk
$ sudo gdisk /dev/xvda/
$ print
$ delete
$ new
$ ####
$ \r
$ #
$ print
$ write
$ y
$ sudo xfs_growfs /
$ sudo file -s /dev/xvda
$ sudo reboot
$ tar -xvf ArcGIS_for_server_linux_1031_145870.gz
$ ./Setup
$ sudo emacs /etc/security/limits.conf
$ ec2-user soft nofile 65535
$ ec2-user hard nofile 65535
$ ec2-user soft nproc 25059
$ ec2-user hard nproc 25059
$ ulimit -Hn -Hu
$ ulimit -Sn -Su
$ ./Setup
$ locate -i authorization.ecp
$ readlink -f authorization.ecp
$ ./authorizeSoftware -f /path/authorization.ecp
$ ./authorizeSoftware -s
$ ./startserver.sh
$ netstat -lnp | grep "6080"
$ hostname
$ emacs /etc/hosts
$ 127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain localhost4 localhost4.localdomain4
$ ::1 localhost localhost.localdomain localhost6 localhost6.localdomain6
$ #.#.#.# localhost localhost.localdomain localhost4 localhost4.localdomain4
Custom TCP rule TCP 6080 0.0.0.0/0
//#.#.#.# or machinename:6080/arcgis/manager
ArcGIS Server Setup Wizard -> Create New Site
Primary Site Administrator -> Create Account
Root Server Directory: /home/username/arcgis/server/usr/directories
Configuration Store: /home/username/arcgis/server/usr/config-store
$ cat /home/ec2-user/arcgis/server/usr/logs/EC2/server/server-...log
> ...
>
>
>
...
$ sudo yum list installed
$ sudo yum install wget
$ wget http://vault.centos.org/6.2/os/x86_64/Packages/xorg-x11-server-Xvfb-1.10.4-6.el6.x86_64.rpm
$ sudo yum localinstall xorg-x11-server-Xvfb-1.10.4-6.el6.x86_64.rpm
sudo yum install Xvfb
sudo yum install freetype
sudo yum install fontconfig
sudo yum install mesa-libGL
sudo yum install mesa-libGLU
sudo yum install redhat-lsb
sudo yum install glibc
sudo yum install libXtst
sudo yum install libXext
sudo yum install libX11
sudo yum install libXi
sudo yum install libXdmcp
sudo yum install libXrender
sudo yum install libXau
$ sudo yum clean all
$ cd /tmp/
$ sudo rm -r *
$ logout
//#.#.#.#:6080/arcgis/manager/
//#.#.#.#:6080/arcgis/admin/
Custom TCP rule TCP 6443 0.0.0.0/0
$ ./stopserver.sh
$ ./uninstall_ArcGISServer
Conclusion: 6443 or 8443?
After years of doing this with first ESRI (PROD), then MapServer (PROD) and GeoServer (DEV), I went back to the dark ahem ESRI side. And what do I keep finding? That the big two are blending together in terms of looks. E.g. The console of the other Java-powered mapping server, GeoServer, is looking similar to that of its big brother on-steroids. The third, MapServer, somewhat paradoxically on the other hand, has both come a long way (MapCache and ScribeUI, yay!) and still lost ground.
Next up, testing Tippecanoe.
PS:
* I tried both 10.3.1 and 10.0 on Ubuntu (15.04), unsupported. While both installed, site creation didn’t work because of missing packages – searching through apt-cache didn’t help either. On Windows, there is always their CloudBuilder.
Related:
* GeoNet
* Landsat on AWS in ArcGIS
#HealthGIS: Notable links and final thoughts on the conference
Health websites using ESRI ++
* With ArcGIS JavaScript
• CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP) Atlas
* With ArcGIS Server / ArcGIS Online (via Apache Flex)
• HealthLandscape’s Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Explorer
• Dartmouth’s Atlas (try generate KML)
• NMQF’s Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) mapping
• HRSA’s Datawarehouse
Health websites whose global participants have trouble with software licenses ++
* With OpenLayers and DHIS2 (~ an opensource InstantAtlas)
• PEPFAR’s (a president’s best legacy) Data for Accountability, Transparency and Impact (DATIM) – coming soon to GeoServer + MapLoom and OpenLayers
* Even Highmaps(!)
• NCHS’s Health Indicators Warehouse (HIW)
* Many More…
Dots
Clearly, there’s no shortage of health data or technologies, esp. following ACA’s requirements of uniform data collection standards, just a continuing kerfuffle with overlaying disparate JSON/OGC tiles from their many data owners and manifold service endpoints. Unfortunately, only part of this problem is technical. Take Flu mapping, for instance. CDC, WHO, WebMD (with MapBox) and Google, even Walgreens does it. Or take HIV mapping where you can choose from CDC and NMQF, among others. Even anonymized private claims data is available for a couple of Ks a month. I think a bigger part of the problem is the misalignment between vendors’ business interests and mandates of various agencies and goals of the health research community at large.
Connect
At some point, researchers and epidemiologists would want to see how these data tiles correlate to each other. And GIS professionals would want a quicker way to ‘overlay this layer’ with out having to dig through Firebug. And compress it over the wire, while you are at it (when our users in remote Africa were asked to switch off their smartphones to view desktop maps, we understood data compression a little differently).
Crunch
And then they would want to analyze them, be it on the server with Big Data or in the client with smaller ones. On analyses, your favorite GIS continues to take heat from tools like Tableau among conference attendees.
Overall, a growing use of ArcGIS Server’s publisher functionalities and a compelling body of story map templates leveraging its narrative text capabilities. E.g. Atlas for Geographic Variation within Medicare. On publishing, I suspect some researchers would like to see a Mapbox plugin for QGIS. Yes, you can render and uploads maps from TileMill to your Mapbox account, but CartoDB has QgisCartoDB where you can view, create, edit or delete data from QGIS to your CartoDB account (I needn’t add that Python-powered QGIS remains a favorite among matplotlib-loving researchers).
PS: My ranking of how easy it is to connect to federal health datasets –
1. CDC (E.g. NCHS, Wonder, Health Indicators)
2. CMS (E.g. DNAV, Medicare – try Hospital Compare – Info, Spreadsheet, JSON)
3. HRSA (E.g. Datawarehouse).
Related:
* CDC’s GIS Resources
* CDC’s Submit Maps
* Hospital Referral Region (HRR) – A regional market area for tertiary medical care
* Health Savings Account (HSA) – A tax-advantaged medical savings account available to some taxpayers
++ While log analyses attest that mono-themed web maps provide a better user experience, given the nature of health data and the costs behind spinning off another mapp (yup, blended words to make a portmanteau), sometimes you just have to combine themes.