FeatureLayer vs IdentifyTask?

[jeremy191wingzero]

I have an application that I've built that uses feature layers to pull in information and allow things such as only showing locations within a selected layer that has X property and/or Y attribute or locations within a certain radius.

There are 15 feature layers that get made on start up, so the load time is heavy and it hits the server pretty hard. If around 10 people are using the application at once it slows things down considerably. I was looking into doing identifytask, but I'm worried that I won't be able to do the search functionality (which is the largest portion of this application) if I eliminate the feature layers.

Is there a way to accomplish what I'm doing without feature layers?

[StevenGraf1]

I take it this is JavaScript?  You may have better luck moving the question to the correct language. In short answer, yes you can use the identifytask with a search function.  You actually don't even need a map to use the findtask (search).  Here are 3 examples of the findtask

Steven

[jeremy191wingzero]

Thanks, I've moved it to the API for javascript section

I actually need the locations and their symbols to appear on the map, but only if they match condition X and/or condition Y.

Right now I have something like this:

http://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/sandbox/sandbox.html?sample=query_buffer

working in a couple of places as far as the radius goes, but that example relies on a feature layer. I really need it (only pushing certain areas onto the map) without the featurelayer if possible.