Running Scheduled Tasks from an ArcServer box

Question

Hello,

We have an SDE database on a SQL machine in our MS Server-stack.  We would like to run some python/arcpy scripts from this machine as scheduled tasks.  We use OS-authentication, and the tasks would be run under a 'Service Account' login.  Do we need ArcGIS Desktop installed on that machine in order to call arcpy commands within a script?

Some insight:  On this machine there is a Python27 folder at the root level, which has one subfolder:  ArcGISx6410.2

Thanks,  Adam

nhetrick · Answer

I would recommend putting desktop on the DB server. It will be a lot easier to run your scripts than trying to call a python path from another location on the network. All of the python libraries needed on your server will be there when you install desktop. I have done this for years with great success automating tasks this way.  You can also leverage other python libs as well to interact with your non-spatial databases as well.