Push down operations to spatial databases

[TorstenSteinbach]

When the geometries are accessed directly from a spatial database then ArcGIS should automatically general the according SQL using appropriate SQL consctucts and SQL/MM functions in the database. A good example here is the spatial join that should be broken down to happen in database whenever possible, e.g. usong ST_INTERSECT or similar spatial join operators of the database. Today the user has to manually type up the SQL query in a query layer to leverage the potentials of spatial databases with ArcGIS.

[ThomasColson]

Down vote explained:  When doing a spatial join in Arc, using data from a SQL Geography or Geometry table, the join occurs within the application with little to no performance cost. Pushing that same join into a ST_INTERSECT statement, especially when you're doing a join from many features to many features, would kill the database, in fact, you may be waiting for many days for the result to return.