The product management team created a list of most frequently asked questions (ofcourse, along with our answers) to help our users. The list below covers a few generic questions on ArcGIS Server Java platform at 9.3.1.
Q: What enhancements
have been made for the ArcGIS Java Platform overall at 9.3.1?
A: ArcGIS for the Java platform is a complete geospatial
platform for Java. It is complete from the aspect of its support at the all
levels of the GIS enterprise: From the Desktop, to embedded systems, all the way
through to the Server. Java programmers and technologists can engineer
world-class GIS solutions from Java Standard Edition (SE) applications to the
Java Enterprise Edition (EE) Applications and system integration, across all of
ESRI’s supported platforms: Windows, Linux and Solaris.
Up until 9.3.1, while the ArcObjects platform was available in Java to be
consumed at all of these system tiers, customization and extensibility was not
clearly supported, and was completely unsupported for the Linux and Solaris
platforms. At 9.3.1, however, this has changed. At this release, the ArcGIS
platform can be extended by Java developers using standard Java tools and
deployment strategies. This technology allows for Java classes to be recognized
within the ArcObjects processes as true COM objects. The significance of this
technology enhancement can be described in a number of ways. Specifically,
developers of Java solutions now have more choices for performance and memory
optimization when architecting their applications. The Desktop can be extended,
as well as the in-process ArcObjects Engine applications. But most importantly,
the ArcGIS Server can now be extended to handle complex geoprocessing and data
access business logic in the server, rather than in the web tier. This allows
for huge gains in performance and scaleability for ArcGIS Server Java
applications.
Q: Are the Windows, Solaris, and Linux versions of ArcGIS Server
functionally the same?
A: No. At 9.3.1, there are a number of differences in
functionality between the Windows and Linux/Solaris version of ArcGIS Server.
The following table lists some of the known functionality/capability differences
between Windows, Linux and Solaris. Most (if not all) of these items have been
publicly documented in various forms throughout the on-line support resources
and software product documentation.
These differences are not expected to change for 9.4.
|
|
Windows
|
Linux
|
Solaris
9
|
Solaris
10
|
|
Authoring
Map Services
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Data
Interoperability Extension support
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Image
Server Extension support (Server-side only) *
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Geostatistical
Analyst Extension support
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Schematics
Extension support
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Mobile
services
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Direct
Connect to Oracle
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
|
High-quality
MapServer output **
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
**
|
|
Retaining
ODBC-based table joins in MXD when moving MXD from Windows
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Retaining
File-based table joins in MXD when moving MXD from Windows
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
Personal
Geodatabase support
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
|
ERMapper
ECW format support
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
No
|
* Image Server client libraries are supported on
Windows/Linux/Solaris
** With respect to Solaris 9, there was a known
limitation with the mapserver output quality of some cartographic elements. A
patched Solaris 10 release, post June 2007, took care of the problem. There is
no workaround for Solaris 9.
The Solaris version must be a release done later than June 2007 or have
the following OS patches present on the system:
- 125100-04 Kernel Update
Patch
- 120473-05 libc nss ldap
PAM zfs Patch
- 125800-01 Fault Manager
Patch
Q: Do you (ESRI) have any
benchmarks testing ArcGIS Server Java on Windows vs Linux?
A: Performance differences between running ArcGIS Server
for Java on Windows versus Linux have been observed. At the risk of
oversimplifying, we will share some findings: Intensive CPU operations at the
Server Object Container tier tend to be faster on Windows, due to slight
overheads produced by MainWin dependencies on our core ArcObjects components.
Operations such as sophisticated on the fly mapping and CPU intensive
geoprocessing operations incur into performance hits that can reach up to 30 or
even 40% on non Windows platforms. Disk IO intensive operations tend to be
however faster on LINUX. For example, accessing map tiles from a cached map
service in LINUX tends to be more efficient than on Windows. The above
differences apply to the ArcGIS Server for Java and do not aim to compare
performance on the .Net and Java flavors of ArcGIS Server.
Q: Is a mixed
platform configuration like SOM on a Linux Box and SOC(s) on a Windows box
supported with ArcGIS Server?
A: No, neither can the reverse scenario be supported. The
reason for this is that file paths cannot be properly reconciled in
communication between a Linux SOM and a Windows SOC. For example, SOC needs to
know the absolute path for the server’s log file. The Linux SOM cannot
communicate a Linux pathname to a Windows SOC, nor the reverse.
Q: Do you support
setting up the server in a clustered environment?
A: Yes. ArcGIS Server is architected to support clustering,
failover and round robin. For a complete discussion, please see the following
links:
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver/9.3/dotNet/index.htm#guide_config_hardware.htm
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver/9.3/java/guide_config_hardware.htm
Q:
Do the Eclipse plug-ins for the Java
WebADF work with JBuilder 2008 or IBM’s RAD 7?
A: ESRI does
not officially support these configurations. However, our plug-ins can be used
in both IDE’s with additional configuration steps.
Content contributed by Eric Bader, Product Manager for ArcGIS Java platform
