SDE,
Oracle, and ArcGIS 8.1
Dylan Keon
15 March
2001
NACSE
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Our
configuration:
- everything on a single Sun
Ultra 10, 128MB memory, for testing
- Oracle 8i (8.1.6)
- ArcSDE 8.1 Server prerelease
Installation
- Not
too difficult on Solaris (haven’t tried NT/Win2000)
- Documentation
for ArcSDE 8.0.2 installation stinks…very little installation
documentation for ArcSDE 8.1
- Need
to understand Oracle (or your RDBMS)
- Consider
new database connect options in ArcGIS 8.1…2-tier vs. 3-tier
Working with Oracle and SDE
- SDE
interfaces well with Oracle
- Oracle
requires extensive knowledge of Oracle-specific config and tuning tricks
- Takes
time to learn SDE use and management at command-line level
- GUI
interface to SDE is easier, seems to be quite functional
- Getting
both to work together nicely requires a lot of testing, and varies
depending upon data involved, number of users, etc.
Loading data
- Can
now load feature classes/datasets and raster datasets through ArcCatalog/Toolbox
- Command
line still works, but more difficult
- SDE
provides ways to configure for mass data loading, etc.…i.e., giomgr.defs
- Geodatabase
concept
Client Access
- Virtually
any ESRI client can access SDE layers, including ArcInfo, ArcView,
ArcExplorer, ArcIMS.
- Services
file must be edited (e.g.,
C:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\services)
Bugs
- ArcToolbox/ArcCatalog
interface to ArcSDE requires some tuning (fixed after prerel.?)
- Raster
loading tool especially problematic…
- Batch
loaders unreliable with SDE layers