MapServer - ArcSDE feedback

[Paul Ramsey]

Ken Lord wrote:

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

Yes, and soon uDig will provide a nice read/write tool for PostGIS (and
many other things).

> 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.

We have not had that experience. Compiled against the 9.0 libraries we
could work against 8.X databases fine, and also 9.0 databases.

> 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.

Indeed. You really have to evaluate what functionality you think you are
getting from SDE. Unless you have an installed base of ArcMap users with
a true concurrent editing requirement, it might not be getting you
anything PostGIS doesn't do better.


Paul

> 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
>>>>
>>