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Module: ArcGIS for Server

Lesson: Introduction to ArcGIS for Server

www.unigis.net © 2012 UNIGIS

UNIGIS

University of Salzburg

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Upon the completion of this presentation you should be able to:

• Explain the server concept

• Define the key characteristics of ArcGIS for Server

• List the web services supported by ArcGIS for Server

• Describe OGC support for ArcGIS for Server

In the previous lessons, you learned about the ArcGIS online main capabilities and

how to publish Tiled Mapping Service and Feature Access Service into ArcGIS online

for organization private instance. In this lesson, you will be learning about ArcGIS for

Server. This is a software solution that helps us to share the GI resources over the

web. After a short introduction of the key characteristics of the ArcGIS Server and

supported services, we will focus more on the Representational State Transfer

(REST) web services protocol




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A server in this context is not the physical computer (hardware) where only the IT

administrator(s) have access to. It is a software that runs on a platform (on-premises

or in the cloud) and which serves/exposes Geographic Information (GI) resources

over the web. The GIS Server is a software that enables us to share the GI resources

through web services. It receives and processes the requests sent by various clients

using a specific web service protocol. The client requests vary from map display

request, to geographic feature editing or execute GI analysis online.




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So far, several GIS sever softwares are available out there: ArcGIS for Server,

GeoServer, Map Server, just to name some of them. A comparison of these solutions

is beyond the goal of this lesson. If you want to learn more about other GIS Server

solutions, please refer to the references list.

ArcGIS for Server is the solution proposed by Esri to publish GI resources over the

web. It works on both Windows and Linux platform and starting with version 10.1. it

runs as a native 64-bit application; the support for 32-bit operating system being

dropped.




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There are three deployment options for ArcGIS for Server:

ArcGIS for Server on premises

ArcGIS for Server is installed on your own IT infrastructure.

ArcGIS for Server in the cloud

ArcGIS Server on Amazon Web Services (AWS) allows us to deploy ArcGIS Server

on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Therefore, ArcGIS for Server runs on

the Amazon’s hardware and is administered through web services.

ArcGIS Online for organizations: The services served via ArcGIS Online for

organization subscription or the hosted services are: Feature Access and Tiled

Mapping. GI resources are served out as web services through the ArcGIS Server

API.




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The web services supported by ArcGIS for Server can be grouped into two main

categories:

• Preconfigured services: services that are installed by default after deploying your

own ArcGIS for Server instance

• Web Services: web services used to expose geographic resources (data, maps,

3D data, tools etc.) over the web to a wider audience.




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Web services publishing tools

How does the publishing process take place? There is a geoprocessing service that

takes the service definition file, unpacks it and deploys it on the server. Then, the

service is running on the GIS server machine. The service definition file is a container

where the service‘s capabilities together with the shared data (or map, tools) are

stored.

Reporting tools are started by default after installing your own ArcGIS Server

instance. These tools are used to generate reports on the services status.

Printing tools help you with web maps printing. Printing geoprocessing service are

installed by default as well.

Geometry service performs geometric calculations such as buffering, simplifying,

area and length calculation etc. If you create for instance a web application with the

ArcGIS Viewer for Flex, ArcGIS Viewer for Silverlight, or the JavaScript APIs, you can

reference the geometry service through its REST endpoint to perform geometric

calculations in your web application.




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The geometry service is used to perform geometric calculations such as buffering

and intersect etc. Supported operations are presented above.




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The ArcGIS for Server supported services are:

• Map Service: serves out an image of the published data (or map);

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• Image Service: serves out raster datasets;

• Geoprocessing Service: used to shared as web service the spatial analysis tools;

• Geodata Service: Imagine you are involved in a project about flooding risk

assessment in Iran. To validate the results of your risk assessment analysis, you

have to make a field trip to Iran. Using a geodata service you have access to the

data stored back on your organization premises. Geodata Service can also be used

to create a replica or a copy of your database on ArcGIS for Server, ensuring also

synchronization between database stored on your machine and its replica on

ArcGIS Server machine;

• Globe Service: serves 3D data over the web.




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The web services published using the ArcGIS Server can be consumed using the

two primary protocols employed by web developers today:

• Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and

• Representational State Transfer (REST)




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Esri desktop clients like ArcMap application are using SOAP to communicate with

the ArcGIS Server web services. The other Esri clients (e.g. developed using

JavaScript, Silverlight or Flex APIs) consume the web services using the REST

protocol.




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Web mapping services can be opened in the ArcMap application by clicking the Add

button, selecting Add WMS Server and typing the map service‘s URL:

http://www.serverName/arcgis/services/ServiceName/WMSServer?




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REST protocol is the most used web protocol pattern for consuming web services

published using ArcGIS for Server technologies. ArcGIS for Server comes together

with an well-known REST Endpoint (Server Directory), where the published web

services are stored and managed. The published services can be organized into

folders and subfolders. Users can navigate through this catalog and find out what web

resources are available on a particular ArcGIS for Server instance. All resources and

operations exposed by the REST API are accessible through a hierarchy of endpoints.

http://<host>/<instance>/rest/services/<folderName>

For ArcGIS Server, the default endpoint or RESTful web services is:

http://<host>/<site>/rest/services/<folder>/<serviceName>/<serviceType>




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The graphic presented above represents an example of an ArcGIS for Server REST

endpoint. It is a HTML file that allows us to navigate through the ArcGIS Server

content and gives us access to the Service Level Metadata.

The first page displays the root directory along with the folders containing additional

services. Demographics folder for instance stores several web services: Map Server

and GPServer (Geoprocessing Server). Map Server displays Demographics data

over the web, whereas GPServer exposes a GIS task (tool or GIS analysis) where

Demographics data is used as input.




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REST endpoint stores also metadata on the published web services:

• Service short description

• Embedded layers

• Spatial reference: accompanied by a number which is actually a well-known ID that

can be looked up in http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisserver/10.0/apis/rest/pcs.html

• Supported interfaces: e.g. REST or SOAP




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REST protocol serves the published GI resources in different format:

• JavaScript Object Notation (json): primarily used by the applications developed

using JavaScript APIs (see above an example)

• html: returns the Service Directory

• action Message Format (amf): binary format used by the Flex Application

• Java Speech API (jsapi): primarily used to view map services in the applications

developed using the ArcGIS JavaScript API

• Keyhole Markup Language (KML/KMZ)




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ArcGIS Server supports the following OGC specifications:

• WMS (Web Map Service)

• WMTS (Web Tiled Map Service)

• WCS (Web Coverage Service)

• WFS (Web Feature Service)

• WPS (Web Geoprocessing Service)

• KML (Keyhole Markup Language)




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A wide range of Non-ESRI clients consume services published via ArcGIS Server.

Here are a list of non-ESRI Clients:

• uDIG

• Google Earth

• GeoNode

• Quantum GIS

• Open Layers

• Gaia

• gvSig




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The connection to ArcGIS Server can be established using different applications:

• ArcGIS for Desktop: click Add Data, select GIS Server, then Add ArcGIS Server,

click the User GIS services tab, type in the server URL following this pattern:

http://servername/arcgis, select ArcGIS Server as Server Type and provide

credentials (username and password)

• ArcCatalog: double click Add ArcGIS Server tab, choose Publish GIS services

(or use GIS Service or Administer server depending on your task and your

privileges), type the Server URL following this pattern: http://servername/arcgis,

and provide your credentials (username and password)

• Using ArcGIS Manager Interface: type in a web browser

http://serverName/arcgis/manager and log in.




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Now, think about the questions stated on the slide - do you know the correct

answers?




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Esri, 2014. ArcGIS Help 10.2 and 10.2.1. Available online at:

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html#/Welcome_to_the_ArcGIS_

10_2_2_for_Server_Windows_Help/0154000002np000000/ [accessed on 30.03.2014]

module: arcgis for server lesson: introduction to arcgis ......arcgis viewer for flex, arcgis viewer...

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