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</head><body><div>Karsten,</div><div><br></div><div>Interoperability with ESRI GeoDatabases (SQL, not file) have their difficulties but they aren't insurmountable.</div><div><br></div><div>To address such interop one must make clear distinctions at differing tiers.</div><div><br></div><div>The first is that the chosen "storage format" is the "native" one for the chosen database product: That is Oracle's SDO_Geometry, </div><div>Microsoft's geomery/geography, or PostgreSQL/PostGIS's geometry/geography. Interop with ESRI's ST_Geometry is possible but</div><div>widespread support across different proprietary and open source product is problematic.</div><div><br></div><div>The second is the database data model. One should not use ESRI's GeoDatabase Design Tool as the <strong><u>ONLY</u></strong> tool for defining the data model.</div><div>Use it, yes, for the ESRI side of the data model/access question, but additionally, one should use a horizontal market data modelling tool</div><div>(like Enterprise Architect which supports ArcGIS data model xml) to QA the model produced by the ESRI tool, to specify more open data</div><div>types, to add additional documentation (that most ESRI customer shops do in Word documents by hand), and to forward engineer those </div><div>components of the model that ESRI rather likes to keep to itself and not share with others (eg constraints, lookup tables/coded domains, foreign keys etc).</div><div><br></div><div>The final aspect is ensuring that ESRI software can do what it believes it needs to be able to do if you are using topological rules,</div><div>versioning etc.</div><div><br></div><div>In essence the activities are: </div><div><br></div><div>1. Define the model so that it can serve an intelligent data to multiple clients independent of vendor. This is best practice data management</div><div> fully in line with database theory.</div><div>2. Then "configure" the ESRI interface (treat ArcSDE as a JDBC interface for ESRI clients) so that it can use the model as if it created it itself.</div><div><br></div><div>I have had success with this in the past. It isn't rocket science though the latter can require a bit of clever thinking.</div><div><br></div><div>regards</div><div>Simon<br>
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<th nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE" align="RIGHT">Subject: </th>
<td>[OSGeo-Discuss] designing databases, organizing data
formats to work with open source and proprietary GIS</td>
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<th nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE" align="RIGHT">Date: </th>
<td>Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:42:55 -0700</td>
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<th nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE" align="RIGHT">From: </th>
<td>karsten vennemann <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:karsten@terragis.net"><karsten@terragis.net></a></td>
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<td>OSGeo Discussions <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:discuss@lists.osgeo.org"><discuss@lists.osgeo.org></a></td>
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<div><font color="#000080" face="Arial" size="2"><span class="383552817-10082011">Hi all,</span></font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font color="#000080" face="Arial" size="2"><span class="383552817-10082011">in the near future I will have the
opportunity to help design databases, decide on data formats
(files data) for an international organization that wishes to
be able to use both proprietary and open source based systems,
mostly in web mapping solution but also possibly on the
desktop. The task will be to design and organize the data
stores in a way that both types of systems - open source (e.g.
MapServer, OpenLayers) and proprietary systems (ESRI Arc
Server) can use them well, and along the way to try to avoid
too much data duplication (having to store data in multiple
formats just to make them accessible) .</span></font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font color="#000080" face="Arial" size="2"><span class="383552817-10082011">This sounds to like a exiting &
useful, fun task, but given the limitations of both systems
(regarding input data that might not work out of the box-
namely file Geodatabases in open source solutions, and PostGIS
data in ESRI products) might be not totally trivial ;)</span></font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font color="#000080" face="Arial" size="2"><span class="383552817-10082011">I was wondering if anybody has done
work on this, has implemented systems facing the same issues
or knows of projects or reports that have been dealing with
similar issues. Also I anybody has comments about what data
storage solution you would recommend and comments about the
pro and cons of certain storage designs please send it to the
list.</span></font></div>
<div><font color="#000080" face="Arial" size="2"><span class="383552817-10082011">Looking forward to hear what other
have come up with.</span></font></div>
<div><font color="#000080" face="Arial" size="2"><span class="383552817-10082011">Thanks a lot</span></font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font color="#000080" face="Arial" size="2"><span class="383552817-10082011">Cheers</span></font></div>
<div><font color="#000080" face="Arial" size="2"><span class="383552817-10082011">Karsten</span></font></div><br></div><div id="M2Signature"><div>-- </div><div>Holder of "2011 Oracle Spatial Excellence Award for Education and Research."<br>SpatialDB Advice and Design, Solutions Architecture and Programming,<br>Oracle Database 10g Administrator Certified Associate; Oracle Database 10g SQL Certified Professional<br>Oracle Spatial, SQL Server, PostGIS, MySQL, ArcSDE, Manifold GIS, FME, Radius Topology and Studio Specialist.<br>39 Cliff View Drive, Allens Rivulet, 7150, Tasmania, Australia.<br>Website: www.spatialdbadvisor.com<br> Email: simon@spatialdbadvisor.com<br> Voice: +61 362 396397<br>Mobile: +61 418 396391<br>Skype: sggreener<br>Longitude: 147.20515 (147° 12' 18" E)<br>Latitude: -43.01530 (43° 00' 55" S)<br>GeoHash: r22em9r98wg<br>NAC:W80CK 7SWP3</div></div></body></html>