ArcGIS products support a large number of data sources to pull data from including both relational database managed solutions and file server managed solutions. Based on feedback from our customers and internal testing of different data sources, this section provides relative differences in performance, scalability and availability. Note that there are always exceptions to relative rankings, but these are provided to give a starting point for helping select the appropriate technology for your environment and also identify suspect areas in your current solutions. Benchmarks utilizing particular data sources are listed in the table below as available.
Performance Factors
Typical primary factors may include performance, scalability, and availability. The table below provides general rankings in each category for many common data sources.
| Data Sources | Performance | Scalability | High Availability | Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| File Geodatabase | High | Low | Low | Duplication copies |
| ArcSDE/SQLServer Esri Binary | High | High | High | Clustered |
| ArcSDE/SQLServer Geometry | High | High | High | Clustered |
| ArcSDE/Oracle esri ST_Geometry | High | High | High | RAC |
| ArcSDE/Oracle SDO | High | High | High | RAC |
| ArcSDE/Postgres | High | High | High | |
| ArcSDE/DB2 | High | High | High | |
| ArcSDE/Informix | High | High | High | |
| Shapefiles | High | Low | Low | Sharing data |
| Personal Geodatabase | High | Low | Low | Relatively slow size limit |
Tuning and Optimization
The following topics should be considered when optimizing the data source:
- Storage hardware
- Data format
- Data location
- Maintenance routines
- Create attribute indexes
- Configure DBMS
- Update statistics
- Rebuild indexes
Scalability Strategy
Scalabilty typically involves scaling out and up the following components:
- Deployment of multiple file data sources, e.g. File Geodatabase on multiple machines
- DBMS clustering solutions, e.g. Oracle RAC
- Scale up data servers (select a bigger server or add more resources)