ArcGIS Help 10.1 - Components of an ArcGIS Spatial Data Server site

Features that have been made available on an ArcGIS Spatial Data Server site are referred to as feature services. The purpose of the spatial data server is to receive requests to the services, fulfill them, and send results back to the client applications. These requests and results are sent back and forth using JSON files.

The following diagram shows the basic architecture of an ArcGIS Spatial Data Server site:

ArcGIS Spatial Data Server architecture

Spatial data server

The spatial data server exposes your feature services through HTTP. You can access your services through a REST service endpoint. From this endpoint, you can query and, if access was granted at the time the feature service was published, add, delete, or update features in the service.

A web server must be installed on the computer where the spatial data server is installed. For ArcGIS Spatial Data Server for IIS, this is the IIS web server. For ArcGIS Spatial Data Server for Java, one of the following application servers must be installed and configured on the computer from which the features are published:

Apache Tomcat
IBM WebSphere application server
Oracle WebLogic application server

The spatial data server communicates with the clients using JSON.

Data source

The data source is the database that contains your source data. This is typically a separate server from the spatial data server. For Java implementations, you must configure the data source with the application server, then map the data source. For IIS implementations, you must map the data source to the spatial data server.

If you are using the Java implementation, you must install and configure JDBC drivers to allow the database to communicate with the application server and spatial data server.

ArcGIS for Desktop

You connect to the database from ArcGIS for Desktop to publish and administer feature services. The database is the data source for the features to be published.

When you publish a feature service, you specify what level of access users have to the features: query, add, update, or delete access.

REST API administrative endpoint

You can connect to your spatial data server from the REST API administrative endpoint. From here, you create and manage data sources and manage services.

Clients

Web, mobile, and desktop applications can connect to services over the Internet or an intranet. These can be custom applications written using the ArcGIS for Flex, Silverlight, or JavaScript web APIs, or clients can use a browser to access services on ArcGIS Online. Additionally, ArcGIS for Desktop clients can consume the services.

7/19/2012