What is ArcGIS Spatial Data Server?
ArcGIS Spatial Data Server is a low-memory-footprint application that lets you use a feature service to serve the geometries, attributes, symbols, and template information for vector data stored in a database or geodatabase. It also lets you edit data in a database through the feature service.
The data can be served to your browser or custom client application. You can use one of the following web APIs to write client applications to render spatial features through the feature service:
- Silverlight
- JavaScript
- Flex
ArcGIS Spatial Data Server is provided as a separate installation with all editions of ArcGIS for Server Enterprise. You can install ArcGIS Spatial Data Server for either IIS or the Java platform. The IIS installation uses IIS as its web server, while the Java installation supports Apache Tomcat, IBM WebSphere Application Server, and Oracle WebLogic Application Server.
License:You can choose to allow editing through your feature service when you publish it provided the data source is a database and you have an ArcGIS for Server Standard or ArcGIS for Server Advanced license. Feature services are read-only if published under an ArcGIS for Server Basic license. Data that participates in a geodatabase cannot be edited through an ArcGIS Spatial Data Server feature service at any ArcGIS for Server license level.
The following is a summary of the functionality available with ArcGIS for Spatial Data Server at each edition of ArcGIS for Server Enterprise:
Basic | Standard | Advanced | |
|---|---|---|---|
Publish query-only feature services | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Publish editable feature services | No | Yes if publishing data from a database; no if publishing data from a geodatabase | Yes if publishing data from a database; no if publishing data from a geodatabase |
The Spatial Data Server can serve data from databases and geodatabases in the following 64-bit database management systems:
IIS installation | Java installation |
|---|---|
Microsoft SQL Server | Oracle |
Windows Azure SQL Database (database only) | PostgreSQL |
IBM DB2 |
See the ArcGIS Spatial Data Server system requirements on the ArcGIS Resource Center for a complete list of supported database releases and web application servers.
What is a feature service?
Feature services allow you to serve features over the Internet or an intranet and provide the symbology to use when displaying the features. Clients can execute queries to get features and perform edits that can be applied to the server.
A client is an application that has access to your server through either a local network (like the network at your place of employment) or the Internet. Examples of clients that can access GIS services include web browsers, mobile applications, ArcGIS Explorer, ArcGIS for Desktop, and ArcGIS Engine applications.
Why use a spatial data server to publish feature services?
The main reason to use ArcGIS Spatial Data Server is to give you editing capabilities on spatial database data. Other reasons to publish data to a spatial data server include the following:
- You need to serve simple spatial data from a database for viewing.
- You want to write a custom editing application to allow users to edit data you publish from a database.
- You have an enterprise geodatabase, you want to serve read-only features from that geodatabase to remote users, and you don't need all the functionality of ArcGIS for Server.