How to Access FeatureLayer Information From REST Resource Call?

Question

I'm still relatively new to ESRI and Silverlight, but I've built a Silverlight 3 control using the ArcGISSilverlightWPF1.1 API, that upon startup, is passed a REST resource to a map service hosted by an ArcGIS Server v-9.3.1.  The control loads the map and provides several different tools with which a user can interact with a map.  The maps are built by others using ArcMap 9.3.1 and are composed of hierarchical layers of type FeatureLayer.

What I now need to do is dynamically, within the Silverlight control, assign a where clause to each of the existing layers.  I can access the layers (as I currently do), but only as type LayerInfo.  Is there a way through the REST resource call to manipulate the layers as type FeatureLayer?

I've seen a MapIt Discussion Forum post (http://forums.esri.com/Thread.asp?c=213&f=2455&t=294020) asking how one might manipulate individual layers contained within a REST service.  The answer from an ESRI engineer was that this was not possible and one would need to create a custom web service on the ArcGIS Server side using ArcObjects.

Would this apply in my case, and if so, are there any examples or advice on how to write one's own service using ArcObjects?

I appreciate the help.

Regards,

Joe Cook

JoeCook · Answer

Mr. Nielsen,

Thank you for the blogpost link.  I shall review it.

Regards,

Joe Cook

SomeGISGuy · Answer

I can't give you many pointers on how to update the geometry on the server (but there are ArcObject forums here for that). However we have a blogpost that describes how to easily get geometry sent back and forth between the client app and a serverside service: http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/silverlightwpf/archive/2010/03/11/Sending-geometry-between-Silverlight-and-the-server-using-WCF.aspx 
All you really need to add is editing the geometry on the client (most of that is already there for you to use), and saving the geometry on the server.

JoeCook · Answer

ArcGIS server 9.3.1 does not support editing of features through the REST endpoint, and neither does v1.1. For that you need ArcGIS Server v10 and ArcGIS Silverlight API v2.0

Mr. Nielsen,

Thank you for your reply.  Due to my customer's existing infrastructure, I am limited to using ArcGIS Server 9.3.1.
 
At this time I am prepared to write my own web service (or Server Object Extension).  Although I have some web service experience, I am new to the ArcGIS Server platform.  Would you know of any tutorials or examples of writing web services to leverage the ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 API?

Also, would you advise a custom web service be a RESTful implementation?  I am aware that there is a SOAP alternative available for ArcGIS Server that provides a superset of capability compared to its REST sibling.  Since you did not mention SOAP as an option in your earlier reply, I infer that the use of REST is the preferred solution.

Thank you again for your assistance.

Regards,

Joe Cook