Getting started

Welcome to the developer Help system for ArcGIS for Server for the Microsoft .NET Framework. ArcGIS for Server offers a complete and integrated, server-based geographic information system (GIS) with out-of-the-box, end-user applications and services for spatial data management, visualization (mapping), and spatial analysis.

ArcGIS for Server provides an "author, serve, use" model that involves authoring content in ArcGIS for Desktop, serving content from ArcGIS for Server, and using (or consuming) content through open standard interfaces by a variety of clients, both Esri and non-Esri.

This Help system provides information about administering services and developing applications with ArcGIS for Server for Microsoft .NET.

As a developer, building and configuring GIS information to be hosted in an ArcGIS for Server service is an important step in providing an efficient and comprehensive solution. As a result, ArcGIS for Server administration topics are included in this developer Help system.

The Roadmap for administrators topic provides references to a comprehensive set of ArcGIS for Server administration topics. In general, the following applications administer ArcGIS for Server:

ArcGIS Server Manager is included with the ArcGIS for Server product installation; therefore, the administration Help topics in this Help system discuss techniques for managing and serving content with ArcGIS for Server using ArcGIS Server Manager. The following illustration provides an overview of the service capabilities and clients in an ArcGIS for Server system:

As an ArcGIS for Server developer, the Roadmap for developers topic provides an overview and references of and to developer content in the ArcGIS for Server Help system. Esri provides various prepackaged client applications, developer frameworks, and application programming interfaces (APIs) to consume ArcGIS for Server services, such as ArcGIS for Desktop; rich Internet applications, such as the ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF); and Web mapping applications, such as the Web Application Developer Framework (ADF) for Microsoft .NET.

In addition, ArcGIS for Server provides a set of APIs built on standards that allow virtually any client application to interact with and use the mapping, spatial analysis, and data management service of ArcGIS for Server. These APIs include the following: