Registering Folders in ArcGIS for Server

Question

Hi folks, having an issue that someone can hopefully help me out with:

I can register SDE geodatabases just fine, the problem I have is with registering folders.  I have a network storage device; it has its own IP and is a share that is accessible by the server and client machines (let's say 192.168.10.21/geodata).  Clients can access this share via the UNC or by mapping the drive to their own computer (we'll say the Q:\ drive).

I created one registration via the UNC address and it works fine (doesn't warn that data will be copied to the server), but I get a medium warning that data is being referenced by UNC (don't know if this is bad?).

I've also created a second registration with the following settings:

Publishers Path:                           Q:\

Publisher Folder Hostname:         192.168.10.21

Server Folder Path (unchecked): \192.168.10.21\geodata

It creates the registration and validates just fine, but when I analyze to publish, I still get a warning that my data is not registered and that it will be copied to the server.  Any ideas?  This is server 10.3.1, but I had the same issues in 10.2.2.

Thanks,

Todd

Scott_Prindle · Accepted Answer

Hey Todd,

When registering a folder over the network, you'll want to use Uniform Naming Convention (UNC) rather than a mapped network drive (Q:\). The mapped drive is associated with the user that creates it, so it'll cause some issues when ArcGIS for Server tries to access this location. ArcGIS for Server will use it's account, typically a local or domain "arcgis" account, to access the specified location. Since you'd be logged into the machine as "todd" rather than "arcgis", using the Q:\ mapped network drive will not be as recognizable by "arcgis" as a UNC path would be.

The warning about UNC paths is also not something to be too concerned about. This is an acceptable format, but it may be warning you since accessing data over the network will be more cumbersome than copying it to the server or referencing an absolute path (C:\data).