To Version or Not To Version

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09-11-2018 05:19 AM
JeffDavis7
Occasional Contributor

Hello,

I'd like to get some advice from the GeoNet Community.

Under what circumstances should you consider employing the use of versioning in your database structure?

Thank you.

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6 Replies
DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

1  If you have multiple users....

2  you don't want to have separate copies of your gdb

3  you  need to accommodate different workflows

4  you do the webgis stuff

Overview of versioning—Geodatabases | ArcGIS Desktop 

So for me, it is not relevant since I am on my own, I prefer separate copies, I am set in my ways and I don't do the web stuff

JeffDavis7
Occasional Contributor

Thanks Dan.  Made me laugh.

Aside from myself there is only one other person in our shop that will be editing.  I don't see that changing.  I have no problem with separate copies of the gdb.  I am the administrator for ArcGIS Online and am the only one who will be publishing.

The previous administrator created versioning.  I believe this was done because they expected more departments to participate but that did not happen.  I just can't seem to see its necessity given our current state.

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KevinDunlop
Occasional Contributor III

Another reason is if you want to do What If cases.  For example if you are planning out a new layout for a park or shopping center, you can created multiple versions for each proposed layout.  Since they are independent of each other until you reconcile and post, you can keep each layout as its own version.  Once the decision makers choose an option, you can post that version and delete the rest.

In addition, the edit undo and redo tools use a version environment to work.  Otherwise any changes are posted to the base table once they are made.

JeffDavis7
Occasional Contributor

Dan,

Do you follow a typical database design structure?

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DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus

Most of my work uses gdbs to store results.  I have rarely had the need to get into this type of scenario...

Fields, domains, and subtypes—Geodatabases | ArcGIS Desktop 

The end use of your data should control your workflow.

PeterKing
Occasional Contributor

Not sure about your environment but another consideration is performance. Unversioned data is much faster as there are fewer "other" tables for the DB Engines to sort through.