During an active mission, effective communication between users must be rapid, seamless, and secure.

ArcGIS Mission Server uses security protocols, including token-based authentication and WebSocket Secure (WSS) connections, which allows persistent communication connections to be maintained securely. WSS connections allow for a more rapid transfer of data, as the connection does not need to be reestablished with every message.

Another role of ArcGIS Mission Server is to ensure that data is properly communicated to users in a mission. For each component in ArcGIS Mission to communicate with each other through location tracks, messaging, tasks, or reports, all data must go through the server. Depending on the message source and the intended recipients, ArcGIS Mission Server translates between Cursor-on-Target Extensible Markup Language (CoT XML) and Esri JavaScript Object Notation (JSON).

ArcGIS Mission Server includes functions and architecture that are unique among ArcGIS Server roles. One of the key differences between ArcGIS Mission Server and other ArcGIS Server roles is that it does not contain its own data store. Instead,ArcGIS Mission Server uses existing capabilities of ArcGIS Data Store and ArcGIS Server to provide a system of record and data persistence. The absence of a data store in ArcGIS Mission Server also allows minimal server administration and maintenance during and after installation.

ArcGIS Mission Server provides an emerging developer story with REST API endpoints to add and delete missions as well as custom reports. More ways of interacting with missions and their corresponding data through ArcGIS Mission Server are under development, and will provide additional opportunities for developers to use this server.