Archive for the ‘ArcGIS Server’ Category

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Now Available: Geocortex Essentials 3.7 and Viewer for Silverlight 1.4

January 27th, 2012 by Peter Rowand

We’re pleased to announce the general availability of Geocortex Essentials 3.7 and Viewer for Silverlight 1.4, continuing our team’s focus on feature and usability enhancements.

Customers can consult the release notes, review a 35-minute video describing new features in further detail, and download the installers in our Geocortex Support Center.

Highlights include:

Geocortex Essentials 3.7

  • Workflow and Forms
    Significant additions/enhancements to  including usability enhancements, rich contextual help for activities, 12 new activities, and new form input types.
  • Layer Themes
    Configure sets of related layers into “themes” which can be easily toggled by end users.
  • Support for simple HTML markup in feature descriptions
    Now, feature information can be formatted with images and hyperlinks when displayed in map tips or the results list view.
  • Bug fixes

Geocortex Viewer for Silverlight 1.4

  • Usability enhancements
  • Layer theme support
  • Support for New HTML tags
    in feature descriptions for enhanced display of features in map tips and results list view.
  • Support for new Workflow activities and Form items
  • Support for ArcGIS API for Silverlight 2.4
  • Bug fixes

Please contact your Latitude Geographics account representative or local reseller if you have any questions.

 

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Posted in ArcGIS Server, Geocortex, Geocortex Essentials | No Comments »

Upcoming Webinars

December 1st, 2011 by Robert Dubicki

 

 

Webinar: Migrating from Web ADF to RESTful Technology

>> December 20, 2011 10 AM PDT

Given Esri’s deprecation of Web ADF, many organizations are in the process of devising migration strategies to shift to Esri’s RESTful web-based mapping platform. In this 30-minute webinar, we’ll explore strategies and best practices to help ensure smooth, efficient transitions.

If you are planning to migrate Web ADF applications, this is an ideal time to rethink how your web-based mapping applications are designed, developed and maintained in order to gain efficiencies and improve productivity moving forward.

This free Webinar will be of interest to GIS administrators, GIS managers and analysts currently using Web ADF who are involved in planning for the transition to ArcGIS for Server using a RESTful approach.  The presentation will take about 30 Minutes, but please allow for an additional 15 minutes for Q&A.

Register Here

 

Webinar: HTML5 and Esri-based Web Mapping

>> February 1, 2012 10 AM PDT

With the steady growth in smart mobile devices and with every modern web browser now supporting HTML5, the adoption of HTML5 for web-based mapping is clearly on the rise.  This 30-minute webinar will provide an overview of HTML5 for generalists, theorize on likely timelines around adoption, and provide information to help you ensure that your organization is positioned to embrace this important standard at the right time.

It may still be a year or more before browser support for the HTML5 standard enables wide-spread adoption, and until then, a pragmatic approach works best. But don’t let that hold you back! Even today, HTML5 offers the opportunity for building platform agnostic mobile applications and solving real-world problems and we will show some examples using the forthcoming Geocortex Viewer for HTML5.

 This free Webinar will be of interest to GIS administrators, GIS managers and analysts currently using Esri’s ArcGIS Server platform. The presentation will take about 30 Minutes, but please allow for an additional 15 minutes for Q&A.

 Register Here

 

Dec. 5, 2011 –  Some small edits have been made to the original post.

Posted in ArcGIS Server, Events, General Discussion, Web ADF | No Comments »

Migrating from Esri ArcIMS to ArcGIS for Server

September 28th, 2011 by Peter Rowand

A frequent discussion topic between Latitude Geographics team members and our customers is the Esri release plans for ArcGIS for Server 10.1, and Esri’s plans to deprecate ArcIMS (details at the Esri blog).

On October 12, we will be providing a free webinar to provide guidance on migrating from ArcIMS to ArcGIS for Server. We will also demonstrate an approach that can help accelerate this migration by gaining efficiencies in the design, development and maintenance of web-based mapping applications.

Interested? The event is filling rapidly. More information and registration is available at: http://www.geocortex.com/events-training/webinars/arcims-arcgis-migration/

Posted in ArcGIS Server, ArcIMS, ESRI, Events, Geocortex Essentials, Geocortex IMF, IMF, Web ADF | No Comments »

Scalable, Distributed Architecture for REST-based Applications

November 3rd, 2010 by Drew Millen

We recently announced the release of Geocortex Essentials 3.1.  One of the big changes in this release is the introduction of an architecture which will support distributed deployments of the Geocortex Essentials REST API.

To understand this, let’s take a look at the architecture before 3.1:

image

NOTE: For simplicity, the relationship with ArcGIS Server is not described in this diagram.

Notice how multiple client applications (such as the Geocortex Viewer for Flex and the Geocortex Viewer for Silverlight) connect to the Geocortex Essentials REST API.  From the REST API they learn about the configuration of the site structure that should be used, and they can access server side functionality such as hi-resolution, large-format printing and reporting.  The Geocortex Essentials REST API is responsible for managing the content in the Sites Directory.

Now let’s take a look at how things have changed with the introduction of the distributed architecture in Geocortex Essentials 3.1:

image

Geocortex Essentials now has a new component called Geocortex Application Services.  The application services live within Geocortex Agent, which is windows service (the same Geocortex Agent that gets installed with Geocortex Optimizer).  Application Services introduces a centralized mechanism to deal with authentication and user management, security tokens, and access to storage (for example, reading/writing site configuration files or print templates).

By creating Application Services and externalizing these functions from the Geocortex Essentials REST API, we can improve the performance of systems under heavy load by distributing the REST APIs across multiple servers.  Think cloud deployment: when your application is under heavy load you can respond by standing up more instances of the REST API behind a load balancer.

Having the Application Services centralized means that you only have to configure your sites and security in one single location.

Posted in .NET, ArcGIS Server, General Discussion, Geocortex Essentials | 2 Comments »

REST-based Security is now available in Geocortex Essentials 3.1

October 28th, 2010 by Drew Millen

Today we released Geocortex Essentials 3.1!  This is a major new release of Geocortex Essentials for ArcGIS Server 10 and 9.3/9.3.1.

Of particular interest we have introduced an architecture which allows you to secure your REST-based applications.  So if you are working with the Flex or Silverlight APIs, or a viewer based on these APIs you can secure your application.

REST_Security_1 REST_Security_2

(above, screenshots of REST Manager Security administration)

Security leverages the .NET Membership & Role Providers, so your users and roles can be stored in Active Directory, SQL Server, or in a simple XML file which is shipped with Geocortex Essentials.  You can also use Windows authentication which has the added benefit of allowing single-sign-on when using Silverlight.

If you are working with ArcGIS Server Web APIs and you require the ability to secure one or more applications you will be delivering to your users, Geocortex Essentials 3.1 may be your answer.

In this release we have also put a lot of effort in to the architecture to enable organizations to deploy multiple instances Geocortex Essentials REST Elements on different servers to support scalability, or elasticity in a cloud-based deployment.

Visit the Geocortex Support Center’s downloads section to grab the installer and read the documentation related to this release.  Be sure to consult the release notes for full details of everything that has changed.

Posted in ArcGIS Server, Cloud, Flex, Geocortex Essentials, Products | No Comments »

Geocortex Essentials in the Cloud

May 3rd, 2010 by David Stevenson

I don’t need to give a preamble on the interest around cloud computing — it’s here now and organizations are using it in many different ways. ESRI is working with Amazon and offering ArcGIS Server solutions in the cloud. More specifically, there will be Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) with ArcGIS Server pre-installed and configured and ready to run. Details around licensing and support are coming at the 2010 ESRI International User Conference.

What about Geocortex Essentials in the cloud? Essentials REST Elements requires no special software other than a supported operating system. This is a recipe for success for pairing Essentials REST Elements with one of the many Amazon EC2 Windows offerings. To prove this, I fired up a basic Windows EC2 instance running IIS, made sure that port 80 was open, downloaded and installed Essentials REST Elements with all default settings, and everything was up and running as expected. I realize that EC2 is giving me basically a regular instance of Windows and so this isn’t totally surprising — but I found it pretty cool nonetheless given that it took me about 15 minutes.

So, bottom line is that Essentials REST Elements is more than happy to run on Amazon’s EC2 cloud offering. Keep in mind that this is a preliminary result, and is not saying we official support Amazon EC2. At least not just yet — we’ll keep this testing going and give an official green light soon.

Posted in ArcGIS Server, Cloud, Geocortex Essentials | No Comments »

ArcNews article on BP Azerbaijan

January 8th, 2010 by Rob Lenarcic

Latitude assisted BP Azerbaijan with a project that’s profiled in the Winter 2009/2010 edition of ESRI’s ArcNews publication.  The printed version of ArcNews is the most widely distributed publication in the GIS industry—something like 800,000 people receive it (not including online readers).

It’s nice to see BP Azerbaijan profiled because they’ve had a great vision and did an excellent job spearheading this project. Also, I’m their account manager. ;)

You can read an online version of the story here.

Posted in ArcGIS Server, ESRI | No Comments »

Caching Imagery with a Raster Catalog

September 18th, 2009 by Stephanie Blazey

One way to increase the performance of imagery in your map service is to cache it. Since it greatly reduces the amount of time required to render the imagery on your map, caching will allow you to show your imagery at a far greater extent than you could if it were being brought in dynamically. While imagery may lend itself to caching, I find on occasion it can be a bit troublesome to get the caching going. I had a bout of Error 999999 with my latest caching project – turns out 1400 sid images covering an entire county was a little more than ArcCatalog could chew. Fair enough, I had experienced similar issues before where I couldn’t even get my ArcGIS Server map service to start because I was throwing too much imagery at it.

Enter the Raster Catalog. Using an unmanaged raster catalog as opposed to a managed raster catalog saved me a bundle of raster catalog loading time. While the managed raster catalog can take as long, or longer, than your cache creation time – so in my case, a day or two – the unmanaged raster catalog takes far less time to create and load – for me, under two hours.

And thanks (many, many thanks) to ESRI Support and the Color Balancing option in ArcMap, my previous misconception that raster catalog image quality had to be poor compared with the original imagery, is a thing of the past – and I have the completed cache to prove it.

Posted in ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server, Caching, Tips | No Comments »

Web ADF vs. RESTful APIs? Not as black and white as some might like…

August 31st, 2009 by Steven Myhill-Jones

People frequently ask us about our take on ESRI’s RESTful APIs in the context of Web ADF. Basically, the RESTful APIs are an important and needed technology. They also aren’t a cure-all, and sometimes Web ADF is the right path (despite its flaws, there are lots of organizations satisfied and successful with Web ADF). We consider REST and Web ADF to be complementary technologies that we envision many folks will choose to run in parallel.

I like the following analogy:

I have five deliveries for you to make. Which of the following two vehicles is better?

apis_vs_adf

Folks that don’t suffer the unfortunate predilection to gravitate permanently to a black and white answer might observe that it depends. If the deliveries consist of envelopes within a ten block radius, the small delivery van is the right choice. On the other hand, if there is two hundred miles between deliveries of heavy crates, then you’re going to want the rig. Which vehicle is better for deliveries? It depends.

Prior to the final release of Geocortex Essentials 2.0 (which ships with REST, JavaScript, Flex, and Silverlight APIs), we were reticent to be too vocal in our situational defense of Web ADF lest anyone accuse us of being biased out of self-interest. However, with Geocortex Essentials 2.0 out the door we now support both platforms; every Geocortex Essentials license includes both our REST Elements and our Web ADF Elements.

Now we can be more vocal about this topic. It isn’t about categorically picking one or the other. ESRI’s RESTful APIs and Web ADF both have their place. The right choice depends on the nature of your app and likely evolution of that app.

Posted in API, ArcGIS Server, Geocortex Essentials, Web ADF | 1 Comment »

Performance Evaluation Tools

July 7th, 2009 by Stephanie Blazey

When considering layer performance, our usual goal is to have a layer render in under 2 seconds, and simple layers can often render in under 1 second. When setting up an MXD in ArcMap, the user can get a rough idea of how long layers take to render by turning them on and off to see how long they take to render on the desktop. Any complex layers (parcels, local streets, detailed coastlines) should be limited to a closer zoom, and any general layers (county boundary, highways, large polygons) can be available at full extent.

If you are using ArcGIS 9.3.1, there is a performance analysis tool available on the “Map Service Publishing Toolbar”. Right-click the main menu in ArcMap to access the Map Service Publishing toolbar. This is helpful for overall map service performance, and can also give feedback on layers that should be limited to a larger scale. More info and instructions on how to use the Map Service Publishing Toolbar from ESRI here.

If you are using ArcGIS 9.2 or 9.3, there is a great script available called MXDPERFSTAT. The script is a free download from ESRI ArcScripts and it works with 9.2, 9.3, and 9.3.1.

MXDPERFSTAT is fairly straightforward to run, you launch it from a command prompt and it will give you feedback on your MXD performance for ArcGIS Server. It analyses your MXD at different scales and locations, which you can set yourself or accept the defaults. It goes through and turns on each layer of your MXD one by one and assesses it for performance. When complete, it outputs an XML file which shows the refresh time in seconds at each scale for the whole map, and then more detailed information for each layer at each scale, including warnings, recommendations to improve performance, number of features and vertices drawn, and layer spatial reference, to name a few. I found it took approximately 15 minutes to run the script on a site with 50 layers. The more complex layers (parcels, streets) took noticeably longer to process than the simple layers.

Posted in ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server, Performance | No Comments »

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