Infrastructure Management Series: ArcGIS Server and Online Data Management

Data management is the backbone of an organization's day-to-day operations. And creating accurate, up-to-date, robust data is an ongoing process. New server-based GIS technology now facilitates this process by allowing staff to edit data from any location via a Web browser.

With ESRI ArcGIS Server, users can access GIS-enabled applications from desktop computers in the office or on laptops and mobile devices in the field. Instead of days, weeks, or months passing before changes in the field are reflected in the database, onsite editing is an easy way to immediately update important data and make it available throughout an organization. Users can add new map features or change existing ones through a simple Internet connection.

Improve Your Information

Editing your geographic database (geodatabase) in the field based on current infrastructure conditions dramatically improves decision making during construction and development projects as well as during emergency situations. For example, a staff member can open a GIS-enabled Web application and create a new pipeline connection to an existing waterline network. That information can be quickly made available online to stakeholders wherever they may be.

Additionally, users can automate complex tasks and then publish the model as a service for others in the organization to use on their desktop or in their own Web applications. ArcGIS Server promotes a centrally managed GIS architecture. When systems and data are organized in a primary data repository, departments throughout a government organization can share information and avoid redundant data collection, which saves time and money.

The technology included in ArcGIS Server allows for geographic data (geodata) management in one of the following commercial database management systems: IBM DB2, IBM Informix, Microsoft SQL Server, or Oracle.

Control the Editing Process

When users edit geodata online through an ArcGIS Server Web application, they have access to simple editing capabilities such as creating and deleting features, modifying geometry, and editing attributes. The rules that are set for organizing data in the geodatabase are honored when the editing is done online such as assigned rules regarding topology.

Database administrators can control online editing by restricting users' ability to edit data; for example, when editing tasks are added to a map document that will be published online, some information can be made non-editable. Administrators can also control how many concurrent users are allowed to edit the data at one time and the editing functionality that will be allowed such as preventing a user from deleting features.

Allowing staff to manage and edit data via ESRI server GIS enriches the important information in the geodatabase, streamlines data collection, and empowers decision makers with the best information available.

Government Engineering, March—April 2007

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