Best practices for layer management

evanpicard — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:25:55 GMT

I just completed the ESRI course 'Building Web Applications Using the ArcGIS API for JavaScript'
Something that wasnt discussed is properly managing layers to be created into service in the first place.
I have about 10 layers of data, some are partially coincidental polygon layers - zipcodes > town > county> state> region etc. others are distinct points here and there thoughout.

When I first started playing with the API tools, I was using the Flex Viewer, and I had beautiful mxd's all set up with symbology and scale-dependant display, etc.
but with so many layers, I feel like it might be better to do each layer as its own service.

Thanks All,
Evan

Re: Best practices for layer management

Anonymous User — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:08:16 GMT

Evan,

This is a tough one. It's right up there with "What size server do I need?"

The best advice I know to give you is to think of the application from the outside in. Do you have multiple applications that will be using the same services? Will they all be using the exact same symbology for all layers? In most cases, this will dictate what you want to do with your services. You may find that your best solution is to group some data into multi-layer services, while leaving others as services unto themselves.

My personal experience is that what you want to do with the data layer dictates where it should reside. If these are static data services that don't change a whole lot, like hydrography or elevation, it might make sense to keep them in a single service and use them as-is, with the symbology you have defined in the map document. Likewise, if you will be doing most of the app-specific stuff client-side with Feature Layers, it makes sense to put them all in a single service. Feature Layers can access individual layers in a service and display them as a single layer on the client. You can also define the renderer for the layer client-side and override what's in the map document.

If you're doing something very service-specific like editing, then you would obviously want a single service for that data.

A general rule is that whatever is easy on the server will cause a bit more work on the client, and whatever is easy on the client might take a little more work on the server. If you group all your layers into a single service, then you might have to do some work setting up Feature Layers on the client to get exactly what you want. Likewise, if you break all your layers out into singleton services, hosting those on the server takes more resources. Using them on the client side is super simple though, you just add the services you want and the rendering and functionality is all defined for you.

I hope this helps. Without having a knowledge of what you need the applications to do with the data, it's a hard question to answer.

Jeff

Re: Best practices for layer management

evanpicard — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:58:13 GMT

Thank you.

topic Best practices for layer management in ArcGIS JavaScript Maps SDK Questions

Best practices for layer management

Re: Best practices for layer management

Re: Best practices for layer management