topic Re: Why buy an ESRI ArcGIS Server license if SQLServer 2012 can read geometry data types? in ArcGIS Enterprise Questions

Why buy an ESRI ArcGIS Server license if SQLServer 2012 can read geometry data types?

FionaRenton — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:13:09 GMT

I still can't find the answer to this question and am wondering if I am misunderstanding something.

Why do we need to buy an ESRI ArcGIS Server license if SQLServer 2012 can read geometry data types?

We currently:

write stored SQL procedures to query the geometry data types for simple polygon and line GIS layers
use the database as a read only GIS library for a few shared GIS layers for a few ArcGIS Desktop users.

We pay another agency to host our map services.

I'm currently loading feature classes into SQLServer 2012 using ArcCatalog 10.2.2 (ArcGIS Advanced) and a direct connection to the database, without having used the "Create geodatabase tool" which requires an ArcServer authorization key.

What additional functionality does enabling a geodatabase in SQLServer 2012 give us?

Thanks,

Fiona

Re: Why buy an ESRI ArcGIS Server license if SQLServer 2012 can read geometry data types?

George_Thompson — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 12:24:25 GMT

Hi Fiona,

When you are storing spatial data in a SQL Server database (non-geodatabase) you are not able to use some of the advanced functionality that makes it a geodatabase.

Below is a list of some functions that are able to be performed in the geodatabase, that would not be available within a "regular" SQL Server database.

Versioning
Esri Replication
Multiuser Editing
Relationships
Mosiac Datasets
Editor Tracking
Archiving

There are many more functions that are available that I have not listed. Here is a site that has a lot of information related to geodatabases and what they can help you accomplish: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/geodatabase

Hopefully this will give you some more information.

-George

Geodatabase‌

Re: Why buy an ESRI ArcGIS Server license if SQLServer 2012 can read geometry data types?

FionaRenton — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 17:53:27 GMT

Thanks for the clarification. For this project we don't need multiuser editing yet.