We are still using ArcIMS with shapefiles - pulling the software down each night and copying shapefiles across at the file level has worked well for us for (many) years.
However we are trying to migrate to ArcGIS for Server, and that doesn't seem to perform too well with shapefiles, so we are also migrating to using file geodatabases as our default storage format - hence this thread.
Versioned editing would not be appropriate because we do not hold most of our data in SDE - we've only found that useful for large fairly static datasets, such as aerial imagery and basemapping. Until recently shapefiles easily out performed SDE for small datasets. I've briefly looked at distributed geodatabases and it might be an option, but I think that's probably overcomplicated for the type of data we are looking at.
I'm interested that you say you don't always have to stop the services - I've been playing on our test servers and I can overwrite a *.gdb folder in Windows Explorer when the data is in use and ArcGIS for Server picks the changes up straight away. However I can't delete a *.gdb folder that is in use. Uisng Catalog I can rename a feature class within a fgdb and copy the new one in, but Server does not pick up the new data until the map service is restarted.
Cheers,
Sarah.
Hi,
I have a further question. The file geodatabases I am trying to update are also used by ArcGIS for Desktop users. These users only have read access to the data, However, if one of them has left ArcGIS open overnight when the update is running some of the files within the fgdb are locked and it doesn't delete cleanly (even though the arcpy.Delete_management command doesn't report an error).
Have you come across this issue? Have you any suggestions how to disconnect users so the fgdb can be deleted?
Thanks,
Sarah.
I would perform a truncate and append of the data from the source file gdb(s) to the file gdb(s) used for AGS services which bypasses any schema locks you would have. The only data type that I had an issue with using truncate and append was annotation feature classes as I don't believe it supports an append operation. I had to stop this service overwrite the feature class and start the service again which was automated with python as a scheduled task.
You could try setting up a shutdown in your licence manager for all desktop products. We use FlexLM and it does just that. And to your earlier question, no I don't always have to stop services, only if a schema lock is set to true. And yes, you will have to overwrite or restart the map service depending on the nature of the change.