Yes. ESRI provides Web Help for both ArcGIS Server for the Microsoft® .NET Framework and ArcGIS Server for the JavaTM Platform. These online documents are excellent resources for understanding important concepts and include valuable tutorials to help you get started quickly. At 9.3, the ArcGIS Server Resource Center provides you access to online software developer kits (SDKs), sample GIS servers, and online content that you can include in your applications.
ArcGIS Explorer is an easy-to-use geobrowser client for mapping and 3D visualization. It provides a fast and simple way to access the rich functionality of ArcGIS Server. It is intuitive and free. This software is designed to work as a client to ArcGIS Server and can integrate other Web services including OGC WMS, ArcIMS, ArcWeb Services, and KML. ArcGIS Explorer also can read and display local data including shapefiles, file geodatabases, and a wide variety of image formats.
ArcGIS Explorer is not a stand-alone solution but rather an integrated part of the ArcGIS system. We believe that ArcGIS Explorer will be very powerful for GIS organizations to make their GIS knowledge universally available.
Yes. At 9.3, ArcGIS Image Server is integrated with ArcGIS Server as an optional extension: ArcGIS Server Image Extension. For a good overview of ESRI’s image management solution, read the ArcGIS User article, Visualizing an Enterprise Approach to Imagery.
Depending on what features you need and how many simultaneous users you plan to serve, you can choose between three editions of ArcGIS Server (Advanced, Standard, and Basic). The functional editions of the product include
Basic—This edition provides users with a comprehensive GIS server for spatial data management. It focuses on organizing and managing geographic datasets.
Standard—This edition provides users with a comprehensive GIS server for spatial data management and visualization (mapping). This includes 2D mapping, 3D rendering (globe) services, and a suite of related features such as geocoding, gazetteer, routing, and so forth. (All aspects of the Basic edition are included in the Standard edition.)
Advanced—This edition provides users with a comprehensive GIS server for spatial data management, visualization (mapping), and spatial analysis including browser-based editing, geoprocessing, spatial analysis, and modeling. (All aspects of the Basic and Standard editions are included in the Advanced edition.)
Furthermore, for each functional edition there are also levels that define capacity. These levels are
Workgroup—This level is designed and limited to run on a single machine with a single socket (single or dual core) and with an included SQL Server Express database engine.
Enterprise—This level is designed to run and optionally deploy a GIS server on multiple machines, with scaling beyond two sockets per machine and on a user-defined database (SQL Server, DB2, Informix, or Oracle).
Talk to your local ESRI representative to find which configuration of ArcGIS Server is right for your organization.
There are two licensing options. Customers can choose to license by the number of cores on either the physical or virtual server(s) (as described below) whichever is the smaller number.
Option 1: Licensed by the number of cores on the virtual server. When creating a virtual server, a specific hardware server emulation configuration is typically defined. For example, a virtual server could be configured to run on a 2, 4, 8, 16 core physical server (the physical server does not matter for this option), or could be configured to use the cores from multiple physical servers. If the virtual server is configured as a 4 core virtual server, the license (and license fee) would be for a 4 core license. If the virtual server is configured as an 8 core virtual server, then the license and license fee would be a 4 core license with 4 additional cores. In this license model, the number of cores for the "virtual" server configuration is used to determine the license fee. The numbers of cores on the physical server(s) that support the virtual server are NOT used to determine the license fee.
Option 2: Licensed by the number of cores on the physical server(s) on which the virtual server is defined. Customers can license the physical server(s) on which virtual server(s) are configured. Generally, this model requires that ALL cores on the physical server(s) supporting virtual server configurations must be licensed. However, some virtualization technology now supports hardware partitioning. If the customer can document that their virtualization technology supports hardware partitioning, ESRI allows licensing based on the specific hardware resources being utilized by the hardware partition. For example, if the virtualization software supports creating a virtual server that utilizes a particular socket, or specific cores on a socket, then licensing is based on the specific number of physical hardware cores specified. Note: fractional partitioning below the core level still requires that the entire core be counted for licensing purposes. When licensing by the physical server, customers are free to install and run any number of instances of ESRI server software in any virtual servers that they create without the need for additional software licenses, provided that the physical server they are using is properly licensed to run this server software.
In summary, customers can choose whichever option provides the least number of cores to be licensed.
Yes, whenever you take the installation media and install a component on another machine, it requires an additional license for the software. Please see your ESRI account rep for more details.
ArcGIS Server 9.3 supports Windows XP and Vista operating systems for basic testing and application development use only. They are not recommended for deployment in a production environment.
For more information on Microsoft Vista support, see ESRI Support Center article: 34020.
ArcGIS on Windows is supported on 64-bit processors with ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 3 and higher. At Service Pack 3, the supported 64-bit Windows operating systems are Windows XP 64-bit and Windows 2003 Server 64-bit. ArcGIS 9.2 Service Pack 3 runs as a 32-bit application on these 64-bit Windows platforms, thereby taking advantage of some of the performance benefits of the 64-bit environment.
ArcGIS Server for .Net and Java and ArcIMS are native 32-bit applications. They are both certified running as a 32-bit application on 64-bit (x64) Microsoft Windows. Web server support is based on the Web server vendor’s support of 64-bit Microsoft Windows. Check with a Web server vendor, if the Web server is supported on 64-bit Microsoft Windows. In addition to Windows, ArcGIS Server for Java and ArcIMS are supported on Solaris and Linux. ArcGIS Server for Java and ArcIMS are both supported in a Solaris 64-bit environment. ArcGIS Server for Java and ArcIMS on 64-bit Linux are not supported.
For more information on 32 and 64-bit support, see ESRI Support Center article: 29391.
After running the Post Installation for ArcGIS Server, a summary log file is created. This log file is used to review how the ArcGIS Server environment was configured and to resolve any permission/rights issues after installation.
The log file name is ArcGISServerPostInstallLog.txt. On Windows, the log file is written to the %TEMP% directory defined for the Windows user account that installed ArcGIS Server. On Solaris/Linux, the log file is written to /var/tmp.
ArcSDE is no longer shipped as a separate product in a separate box. This functionality is now included with the ArcGIS Server Enterprise software licensing option in the ArcGIS Server Enterprise box.
If you received an ArcGIS Server Enterprise box, locate a separate DVD in the media kit that contains the ArcSDE installation.
Even though you may have the Windows version of ArcGIS Server, the ArcSDE DVD installation disk contains the setups for ALL platforms.
If you are current on your ArcSDE maintenance, you should receive the ArcGIS Server Enterprise 9.2 box when the product gets shipped. If that is not the case, please contact your ESRI Regional Sales representative.
Yes, it is possible to install ArcGIS Server and other ArcGIS products on a single Linux/Solaris machine. To prohibit the two applications not interfering with one another, ArcGIS Server must be installed with a different user account and in a separate location from the other ArcGIS products. The other ArcGIS products must also be installed in Single User mode, not Multiple User mode. Warning messages are displayed reminding the user of these requirements if conflicts are detected during installation.
It depends. ArcGIS Server allows users to cache their maps. This means that the server does not need to dynamically generate new images when the user navigates the map, because they are prerendered. This provides users with responsive applications that are not possible with ArcIMS technology.
However, there may be cases where you cannot cache maps. For example, users may need to turn layers on and off or apply custom filters to the map service. In these cases, the use of dynamic map services is necessary. ArcGIS Server dynamic maps are slower than ArcIMS, especially under heavy load or in non-Windows platforms. ESRI is actively working on solving this problem. ArcGIS Server will outperform ArcIMS dynamic map services in 9.4.
Yes, ArcGIS Server for the .NET Framework at 9.3 requires a minimum of .NET Framework 2.0 to run applications, but both 2.0 and 3.5 can co-exist without issues.
At 9.3 we have dramatically improved the performance of .Net WebADF applications by reducing the number of callbacks to the server and optimizing different aspects of the application. We have also worked on improving the user experience while configuring applications with ArcGIS Manager, and also while using the Web Mapping Applications.
A new out of the box Print task has been created and its source code is now part of the Code Galleries available from the Developer Help at resources.esri.com. We will continue to post the source code of new tasks in the future.
From a developer point of view, we have fully implemented Ms AJAX allowing developers to follow standard coding patterns in .Net. JAVA support to AJAX as also been improved. Also, WebADF Java components are delivered to the NetBeans platform as Netbeans plugins that can be updated on-line, in the same way as other standard netbeans modules can be delivered/updated.
Finally, both the .Net and Java WebADFs include more comprehensive developer documentation.
The Java Web Application Developer Framework (ADF) allows multiple resources to be added to the map that is displayed in the browser. Any combination of ArcIMS, ArcGIS Server, Web Map Server (WMS), and ArcWeb services can be added to the map. When dealing with ArcGIS Server services, the Java Web ADF differentiates between those that have generated map cache and those that have not generated map cache. In all cases the cache is used. Of the two scenarios below, the first generally runs slower.
If the cached ArcGIS Server service is above a layer that does not have cache, then it asks the MapServer server object container (SOC) for that resource and the MapServer uses the cache in generating an image.
In all other situations the Java Web ADF retrieves the cache directly or accesses it through the cache tile handler.
You can watch or download presentations made by ESRI’s product engineers and managers at the 2008 ESRI Developer Summit. For a list of ArcGIS Server presentations go here.
At 9.3, you can publish your GIS content as KML. Keyhole Markup Language (KML) is an XML-based file format used to represent geographic features in applications such as Google Earth and ArcGIS Explorer. If you haven’t tried it, yet, download ArcGIS Explorer (a free, Google Earth–like application) that handles KML easily.
For ArcGIS Desktop, there two new tools in ArcToolbox: Map To KML & Layer To KML. These tools will allow you to publish your GIS content and add it to Google Earth and ArcGIS Explorer. You will literally be able to drag and drop the KML files on those applications to visualize the information. This means you won’t have to include basemap information in your map or create a basemap layer because you’ll be using Google Maps or ArcGIS Explorer basemaps.
For ArcGIS Server, any service you create is automatically output as KML as well. Keep in mind that ArcGIS Server services are available to a variety of client applications, including ArcMap, ArcGIS Explorer, Google Earth, Google Maps, and Microsoft Virtual Earth. Check out Services Directory website for the portland service hosted on ArcGIS Online. Here, you get metadata about the service and you can preview the ArcGIS Server service (Portland/Portland_ESRI_LandBase_AGO (MapServer)) that’s open to the public in any of those client applications. If you choose Google Earth, you can download the KMZ file for the service and then drop it onto Google Earth or ArcGIS Explorer. If you choose ArcGIS Explorer, you can download the NMF file for the service and then drop it onto ArcGIS Explorer. If you choose ArcGIS JavaScript, you see an interactive map of the service. With ArcGIS Server 9.3, a Services Directory website is automatically generated for every service you create.
Yes. We support all the components of ArcGIS Server in virtualized environments as long as they run on supported platforms. Xen, Solaris Zones and VMware are some of the virtualization/hypervisor products on the market today. If you have questions or problems, contact the Support Center and we will assist you to the best of our abilities. It is important to note that ArcGIS Server works in virtualized environments but it is not certified on them. To be certified would mean that ArcGIS Server has passed our rigorous testing program on systems, which includes various OSs, DBMSs, chipsets, etc. that are running in a virtualized environment. Given a finite set of resources, ESRI had to limit the breadth of technologies/platforms we test in during our certification process. To date, none of the virtualization/hipervisor products are one of those platforms (nor are other enterprise technologies such as DBMS replication, fail-over solutions, etc). While not "certified", we do have lots of customers that have gotten ArcGIS Server to "work" on virtualized environments (especially on VMware, which is as of date the most popular).
ESRI has not completed a comprehensive testing, yet but so far our experience indicates that map services are about 30% slower in a virtualized environment. These results are not definitive.
ArcGIS for AutoCAD requires the .NET API implemented in AutoCAD 2007 and newer versions. Starting with ArcGIS for AutoCAD 9.2.2816.24072, AutoCAD 2007 and 2008 are supported. This includes all AutoCAD-based products that support the AutoCAD .NET 2.0 APIs, such as AutoCAD 2007 and 2008. AutoCAD versions prior to 2007 and AutoCAD LT do not support these necessary APIs required by ArcGIS for AutoCAD.
Yes, the Mobile ADF in ArcGIS Server can be used to connect to ArcGIS Server Advanced editions. The type of Web ADF, .NET or Java, installed on the server does not matter.
The Server Object Container (SOC) must be installed on a Windows machine. SOCs installed on Linux and Solaris machines do not work with the Mobile ADF.
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