Creating views in SDE 10.3

[KenCarrier]

How are views managed in 10.3? At 10.2.2 creating a view inside SDE acted like a query layer. By this I mean when adding the view to ArcGIS Desktop you would be required to specify a unique ID field and a spatial extent. On the other hand when creating a view via SDE command line the view would get registered with sde and the user would not have to specify anything when adding that layer to ArcGIS Desktop. This is one function from sde command line which had better performance and usability than creating the views through ArcGIS Desktop. How has this changed in 10.3?

[DavidColey]

Ken, are you saying 10.2.2 command line op 'sdetable -o create_view' will work against a 10.3 instance?

Will other 10.2.2 command line ops work such as 'sdetable -o delete'?

Thanks

David

[KenCarrier]

Good question I did not test that command but I would assume it would work. I am on vacation right now if you can test this before I get back and post back here on the forum your results I am sure others as well as myself would be thankful.

Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

[KenCarrier]

Yes create_view from 10.2.2 command line will still work against a 10.3 SDE. I tested some other commands like delete and they work as well.

[DavidColey]

That's interesting.  We'll be updating our dev instance next week to .3, I'll post back any thing I find....

[JohanWauters]

We upgraded from 10.1 to 10.3: ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server, Geodatabase on SQL Server. We still use the sdelayer 10.1 tool to register the multiple (spatial) views on the 10.3 Geodatabase, and some people still use the existing sde service 10.1 connecting to the 10.3 Geodatabase.

[MichelleMestrovich1]

Thanks, John.

I had a long talk with ESR Atlanta yesterday. It was  rep who works between the customers and developer. She said ESRI is trying to figure out what to do about this, but it will most likely not be released until a later version if they do anything.

I was going to go ahead with using command line SDE 10.x to get stuff in, but decided since ESRI might go away from supporting, I'm going to create static layers.

Most of my views update the underlying data once a data so this I manageable.  I'm just writing models to join the data and then update a static layer. I found I can do this even when I have locks on the data such as REST endpoints or users connected with minimal interruption to the user.

I really want Spatial Views to come back. I'm going to conference in July and I'm going to try and sit down with some folks and discuss this and really push for it to come back.

Mich 🙂

[MichelleMestrovich1]

Had a nice long chat with ESRI today about this issue. So apparently the plan was to port all the SDE command line functionality into 10.3 ArcCatalog.  Well they decided to get rid of the command line even though they didn't have all the functionality ported yet (brilliant, I guess they were hoping we wouldn't notice).

In the meantime the course of action I'm taking and which is working is to load 10.2.2 SDE Command line tools and rebuild the views there for now.  This keeps the ObjectID intact and working correctly.

Once they fix all the missing functionality in 10.3 then I'm going to rebuild the views using ArcCatalog. I like the fact that if you build the views there you have a different icon representing it as a view. I get a lot of question whether something is a view or layer so having the icons distinguishing the difference will help a lot.

After we talked the analyst also elevated the issue so hopefully it will be fixed sooner then later.

[JoshuaBixby]

In the realm of community planning, there is a model of public or stakeholder engagement/participation called Decide, Announce, and Defend (DAD), a.k.a., decide-inform-justify.  It has been and continues to be the most common way most organizations (governmental, civic, private sector, academia) engage their stakeholders, but it is also a paternalistic model that some argue is outdated, even antiquated.

On the spectrum of DAD to informed consent, Esri is pretty far over on the DAD side whether we are talking about the retirement of SDE command line tools, the transition to MyEsri, or even their business processes as they relate to customers.  Esri isn't unique in this regard, just look at all of the products Google unceremoniously jettisoned in the past year, but that isn't much consolation for ArcGIS users.  I think there are IT companies that do it better, and I would like to see Esri improve their customer engagement from the introduction of new features to supporting those features throughout their lifespan and eventually retiring them.

Hope isn't a strategy, at least if you want to accomplish anything, but it can be a coping mechanism.  So, I too will hope they fix some of these SDE command line issues sooner than later.

[MichelleMestrovich1]

The first version of ESRI products I worked on was Workstation 5, way back in the '90s. I've been through quite a few releases of new software and it doesn't surprise me when I see things missing or now quite working as stated.  One thing it has done for me is to think out side of the box and come up with workarounds.  If anything it has made me more flexible and able to go with the flow. 

[JoshuaBixby]

I hear ya.  Usually there are workarounds, but not always.  The frustration with relying on workarounds is that they tend to break even more frequently than ArcGIS between versions, which in effect puts you on a gerbil wheel.  Workarounds are a necessity at times, but they are also wasted time when there is work to be done.

For your sake and mine, along with many others, let's hope each 10.3.x release adds more geodatabases administration functions/tools.