benefits of network attributes

[GISUN]

dear GIS folks i am new to the Utility network, and I am asking what is the real benefit of network attributes, I found that Esri say "to aid in performance while attributes are evaluated during a trace or while performing" so does it just for enhancements or performance which mean If I can all tasks/workflow with none of them but with low performance. isn't!

[JesGooch]

Hi!

Network attributes are part of Network Topology Management.  These attributes are derived from the network feature's attributes and cached inside the network topology to aid in performance.  The values that are stored are updated in the associated network attribute each time you validate the network topology.  For more information on network attributes, you can take a look at the following help documentation:  https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/utility-network/network-attributes.htm

I hope this information helps you get a better understanding as to what network attributes are and why they are an integral part of the Utility Network.  

-Jess

[BillBott]

Caveat Emptor: there is a cost to modeling fields as network attributes, that cost is measured in the synchronization of the network attribute with its database value(s), and vice-versa. Furthermore, there are subtleties about how the attributes are updated (or not) depending what type of version the data is being edited in (child or DEFAULT) and what the related settings are. 

Generally, you want to designate fields as network attributes that are sure to be used in a given trace setup or configuration. 

[RobertKrisher · Accepted solution]

@GISUN If you need to refer to an attribute in order to control tracing or calculate summary statistics, you need to make it a network attribute. Normal attributes are not available in the Trace or Set Subnetwork Definition tools. With that being said, I recommend you download one of the Utility Network Foundations to learn how each industry uses different network attributes to control tracing and produce statistics for their subnetworks.

If you want to include an attribute value in tracing/analysis it needs to be defined and validated as part of the network, this ensure that as we are loading the topology for analysis, we are also loading all the attributes required for analysis. You can imagine that if we didn't store this information with the topology and we needed to query individual features (or cache entire areas of the map) as we were evaluating the topology that this would be quite slow!

[GISUN]

thanks a lot @RobertKrisher, after some research and with these answers I could figured out it's benefits. But now If you could describe with examples the following question: ESRI mentioned that "hierarchical domain networks, the tiers are nested & partitioned domain networks, the tiers are in a series" what is this means?

[RobertKrisher]

@GISUN In practical terms, a feature in a hierarchical network can belong to many subnetworks while a feature in a partitioned network can only belong to a single subnetwork, I provide industry-specific articles as well as some hands-on tutorials in this learning series. So, a gas pressure valve can belong to a gas system, a pressure zone, an isolation zone, and even a cathodic protection zone. An electrical customer only belongs to a single circuit.

[GISUN]

Thank you for the explanation. Just to clarify, in the case of the gas network, is it accurate to say that the 'Gas System' represents the entire network with varying pressure levels, while the 'Pressure Zone' represents a specific pressure zone, and the 'Isolation Zone' (Tier) represents areas with non-traversable flow? Is that the correct interpretation?

Additionally, I'm curious about the advantage of using the same asset, such as a valve, in multiple zones (tiers). Could you explain the practical benefits of this configuration?

[RobertKrisher]

@GISUN An entire gas utility network can have multiple systems if it is large enough to have separate, disjoint areas of service (e.g. a western system that is not connected to an eastern system).

The advantage of an asset belonging to multiple tiers is that it accurately reflects the real-world configuration of a network. Companies organize their data into these different subnetworks, and in the case of hierarchical networks these boundaries are either nested in each other (system, pressure, isolation zone) or overlap with each other (cathodic protection). If we required everything to be partitioned, then we would only be able to model one of these tiers as a subnetwork and everything else would have to be managed manually (or through customization).