ESRI users' conference & ArcGIS 9.2 release

Yesterday we have been in ESRI users' conference (the fifteen in Israel).

In the conference they announced on the new ArcGIS 9.2 release.

In the conference my company (because the applications that were develop in my team) won a prize for using and developing in the most modern ESRI software (we are the first company that developed application that using the ArcGIS-Server in Israel).

I will share some highlights from the conference with you:

1. ArcGis-Server is a new platform for comprehensive GIS solutions.

Main goals:

• To manage the organization GIS data.
• To publish the GIS data on a web browser.
• To give displays of 2D and 3D.
• Advanced GIS services (base on SOA).
• Integration in the others enterprise systems like CRM, ERP, etc.
• The ability to develop custom application using .Net & Java platform.

The ArcGIS-Server is divided to three licenses and functionality levels:

a) ArcGIS Server – basic edition.

b) ArcGIS Server – Standard edition (equal to the old ArcIMS software).

c) ArcGIS Server – Advanced edition (equal to the old ArcGIS Server software in version 9.1).

2. There is a new data container for GIS data is called "file geodatabase". "A file geodatabase stores datasets as a folder of files on the user's file system, much like a folder of shapefiles would be stored. Individual datasets can be as large as one terabyte, and there is no overall database size limit. Compared to personal geodatabases, file geodatabases improve performance, store vector data more efficiently, and improve concurrency and multiuser access over a network. They also provide an alternative read-only format for large vector feature classes and tables that provide additional performance improvements."(From ESRI documentation).

3. A new format – terrain to store massive datasets containing elevation or other surface data in the geodatabase.

4. ArcImage-Server – a new application that gives us on the fly functionality to display a crude data (supports multi users without a need to load the data into the GeoDatabase).

5. New features in GeoDatabase managing:

a) Spatial SQL for Oracle: The most interesting feature in the 9.2 version is the ability to make a SQL queries on the spatial data. A new amazing feature gives us the power to make DML commands directly on the SDE tables (and no, you don't need to install the Oracle Spatial extension for this job…), and for example, to add a new geographic entity without using the GIS-Server/Map objects/SDE API and etc.

b) Nonversioned Editing – in the last versions the only way to edit a geodatabase is in a version mode. In 9.2 version ESRI added a new option to do it, by using short transaction editing model.

c) Versioned Data Replication - The idea is that one GIS center has the ability to synchronize all your "sub" GIS servers. The synchronization process executes in LAN\WAN networks, and at constant periods of time or on-line.

6. ArcGis Explorer

This is a new lightweight application. The ArcGIS Explorer is one of the ArcGIS Server clients.

The ArcGIS Explorer gets its functionality from number of resources (Web services, ArcGIS Server, ArcIMS, Web Map Services).

In addition we can display data from local sources (shapefiles, file geodatabases, KML, JPEG 2000, GeoTIFF, MrSID, IMG, and other image formats).

For now, you can download the ArcGIS Explorer only from the ESRI beta program.

After you will finish installing it you should add new tasks, and I recommend that you will start from the free tasks from ESRI.

A problem in DCOM when working with Gis-Server on Windows server 2003.

Today Nati(one of my team-mate) and I, tried to install a Gis Application on a server that contain the Gis-Server(one of the ESRI company new product) that use it off course.

The server runs on Windows server 2003, with SP1.

We got this error:

"The application-specific permission settings do not grant Remote Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID"

One of the solutions to this problem is to give the "Activation and Launch" privilege to all users in Domain, on the ArcSom application(Trust me its works).

But it's a very bad solution (Security issues...), so I decided to look for a better solution over the net.

After a brief look, I found that this is a known problem, and ERSI even publish a specific patch to give an answer for this bug.

Finally I understood the problem: In the SP1 Windows Server 2003, Microsoft implement new DCOM communication restrictions that prevent users from launching or activating remote COM servers unless explicitly granted permission to do so. The ArcSOM process is a COM server and as such, must be configured to grant remote launch and activation privileges to users in the agsadmin and agsusers groups.

By the way, I think that ESRI patch works very similar to the "bad" solution, but I hope that they found a better solution.