MapServer - ArcSDE feedback

[Ken Lord]

You can directly edit your spatial data in PostGIS with ArcMap too,
there is an ODBC driver available on sourceforge that allows the
connection.

Last I checked several months ago, it still needed work, when editing
a table you had to save a new version of the table to the database,
then delete the old table,  perhaps that has improved in the time
since,  or perhaps there's some whiz here that could make that better
for us :)

I have not used MapServer with ArcSDE but I have heard nightmares of
having to build mapserver for the exact version of ArcSDE you are
using.

I have setup test websites with PostGIS, keeping data in shapefiles
for easy editing which I then import into PostGIS after editing.  It's
an extra step, but in my opinion its well worth the ~$20,000 cdn (plus
annual 'maintenance' fees) that you can save using PostGIS.

Cheers,
Ken Lord
Vancouver BC



On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:20:18 -0800, Paul Ramsey <pramsey at refractions.net> wrote:
>   The main advantage of ArcSDE is that you can directly edit your data
> with ArcMap. There are also some other good desktop-integrated features
> like versioning and topology that work well with ArcMap.
>   Everything else is disadvantages. Performance, flexibility, price,
> standards compliance: PostGIS wins on them all.
>
> Paul
>
> Bart van den Eijnden wrote:
>
> > all the info about Mapserver and SDE is on the Wiki:
> >
> > http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?MapServerSDE
> >
> > I'll let others (who are more capable) comment on the PostGIS-ArcSDE
> > comparison .... the only thing I know is that ArcSDE has a deadly
> > connection overhead so you should use Mapserver in FastCGI mode for that
> > to get an acceptable performance.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Bart
> >
> >
> >>Hi all,
> >>
> >>the company for wich I work is taking into account to buy an ArcSDE
> >>license.
> >>Is there someone which can give me some feedback (or links to) about
> >>connection of MapServer with ArcSDE ?
> >>I would like to know problems and advantages especially compared with
> >>having data in PostGIS.
> >>
> >>I think this could be usefull also for other people ...
> >>
> >>Thanks
> >>    Piero
> >>
>