Latest Contributions by JoshuaBixby

I wasn't sure whether to post the following comments here or over in the Blogs, so I erred on doing both. I don't mean to be contrary, but I just can't get excited about replacing one suite of simple, script-able tools with an assortment of scattered and mostly GUI-driven tools.  For example, how is replacing several of the sdemon commands (-o info -I users/locks, -o pause/resume, -o kill) with tabs in ArcCatalog a step forward?  I realize the tabs in ArcCatalog are going to be convenient for the casual SDE administrator, and I think providing them brings some value, but providing them as the exclusive means to manage geodatabases is a step backwards. I am not necessarily advocating for keeping the command line binaries around, I just think nearly all of the functionality should exist through non-GUI means in one form or another.  If Esri wants to migrate away from command line binaries to ArcPy/Python; great, I will work with that.  I just can't work with managing thousands of users scattered across hundreds of geodatabases using tabs in ArcCatalog or some other GUI-only option. ... View more

Hi, I *really* need to know the content of that blog post, which is no longer available. Can you provide me with the fix for slow draw times with SQL 2008 geometry on large sets of features? thanks! There was a domain name change, but the blog post is still available: http://geodatabase.net/wp/sql-server-2008-spatial-indexes-and-arcsde-9-3/ The content of that blog post, and this forum discussion, is pretty good, but it all is nearly 2 1/2 years old.  ArcSDE has changed some and SQL Server has had lots of improvements to its spatial support.  If you are truly running SQL Server 2008 with no service packs and ArcSDE 9.3/9.3.1, I think there is likely a larger issue that needs to be discussed more than tuning spatial indexes. Good luck! ... View more

Quick follow up....  I did just read on a 2007-vintage Esri forum posting, Raster File Geodatabase w/ Relative Links, that this isn't an issue wth Personal Geodatabases because of some built-in "auto-find" function, I am guessing with the Jet database engine.  I found the final quote of the thread by an Esri product engineer rather illuminating on what are chances are for this issue to be addressed: Unfortunately this is only working for pGDB at the moment. This functionality should be fixed for fileGDB soon. Sorry for any confusion. 7March 12, 2008   ... View more

I second the second, and then second that second of the second, etc....  Yet more enterprise funcationality missing from an enterprise-y product. ... View more

It seems there are multiple places to comment on ArcGIS Diagrammer functionality, so I am going to cover my bases.... When diagramming in ArcGIS Diagrammer, it would be nice to "hide" certain types of objects, specifically Subtypes. I work with feature classes that utilize large numbers of subtypes.  Although when diving deep into the schema or designing a geodatabase it is important to have those on the diagram, when trying to export a diagram for business users or management types, the display of all the subtypes is clutter.  I can go ahead and delete them all for making a graphic to present, but even that is a bit of a hassle. ... View more

It seems there are multiple places to comment on ArcGIS Diagrammer functionality, so I am going to cover my bases.... When diagramming in ArcGIS Diagrammer, it would be nice to "hide" certain types of objects, specifically Subtypes. I  work with feature classes that utilize large numbers of subtypes.   Although when diving deep into the schema or designing a geodatabase it  is important to have those on the diagram, when trying to export a  diagram for business users or management types, the display of all the  subtypes is clutter.  I can go ahead and delete them all for making a  graphic to present, but even that is a bit of a hassle. ... View more

Thomas, I put a call out within my organization for SDE administrators to comment on the likely loss of the Version Lineage diagram at 10.1.  The replies have started coming in, and I want to give people a week or so to document specific examples of where that functionality has proven invaluable.  Looking over early feedback, there are a couple of prevalent themes, but there are also several unique circumstances where the visual diagram was instrumental in troubleshooting version problems. I think the response will get a bit involved for this forum.  After I compile and synthesize comments, I will contact you via e-mail about submitting them to you. Cheers, ... View more

Thomas, Thanks for the reply, and I will definitely work on documenting a couple of use cases for you in the coming weeks. I work for a large, de-centralized organization with a large, centralized data center.  SDE is an integral part of that data center environment with hundreds of geodatabases for hundreds of geographically distributed branches/offices housed in one location.  Although SDE is centrally deployed, it is managed and used in a de-centralized fashion.  For the local branch/office people, such as myself, that are in charge of managing their respective geodatabase, educating casual GIS users and local management is crucial.  Branch/office SDE administrators wear numerous other GIS-related hats, and GIS teacher and evangelist are two of them. From my perspective, the educational value of the of the Version Lineage functionality is sufficient to warrant its continued support in Esri's product line.  But if educational value isn't sufficient for some, I believe there is organizational value to the tool.  Visualizing how states are created and managed helps an organization understand how different program areas interact with and utilize geospatial data.  I hope to provide a couple of explicit examples of where visualizing Version Lineage brings business value to an organization. ... View more

I am all for improving the tools used to administer a geodatabase, but I think removing the Version Lineage Viewing capabilities is a poor call.  A handy, visual tool can be used for so many different needs/situations that removing it because 3 specific situations have better tools seems hasty. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I just got cursed with looking through thousands of lines of verbose logs to comprehend what can be visually communicated in a diagram or two.  Getting access to actual text messages, through verbose logging, is very important, but it doesn't obviate the need for good visualization tools. ... View more

I can't say it directly answers your question, but it might be worth your time to look over the Editing Sql Server without ArcSDE thread in the ArcGIS Desktop forum. ... View more

Tom, thanks for the more in-depth explanation of what occurs during a connection and what changed in 10.1.  I was generally aware of the differences between Oracle client libraries and Esri direct connect libraries, but I wasn't sure of how they interacted, especially in 10.1.  My questioning and frustration were in earnest; I was trying to understand what changed in 10.1 and why I was seeing certain behaviors. Your statement, "we only have 1 Esri library used to make the connection (which is based on Oracle 11g libraries)," is the most informative for me, and it will be good to communicate the Oracle 11g part of that statement to our organizations IT architects. ... View more

Seeing that the Oracle client choice is supposed to be automatic at 10.1, and the error message I received is the red herring discussed in another thread, I guess it is likely ArcCatalog tried both Oracle clients (10g and 11g), failed with both clients (SDE 9.2 isn't supported anymore), and then only presented one error message to the end user. If there is one suggestion to come out of this experience for me, it would be that more descriptive error messages would help clear the fog for end-users and speed troubleshooting for Esri Support. ... View more

The behavior must have changed for 10.1.  I have a machine with Oracle 10g and Oracle 11g clients installed, and both clients are fully functional.  When I try to make a connection to SDE 9.2, I get the following error:[INDENT]Database Connection Failed to connect to the specified server.  Do you wish to continue? ArcGIS 9.2 geodatabases do not support direct connect using Oracle 11g clients.  Please use the Oracle 10g client or the application server. [/INDENT]Ignoring the fact that 10.1 connections to 9.2 are not supported anymore, how does one use the Oracle 10g client if there is no place to specify an Oracle client version when making a connection? ... View more

The previous table of results for 9.3.1 is identical for our machines with ArcGIS 10.0 installed on them. ... View more

ArcGIS simply makes the call to the Oracle client which would be the first one in the library path as the DLL is loaded. I haven't had a chance to test with ArcGIS 10.0 or 10.1, but I just don't believe the situation is so with ArcGIS 9.3/9.3.1.  On our organization's machines that are configured with Oracle 10g and 11g clients and ArcGIS 9.3.1, it seems ArcGIS is looking for specific Oracle clients and not just the first Oracle client in the path. The behavior on our machines is: [INDENT]System PATH           SDE direct connect string    Result 10g path;11g path  sde:oracle10g                    Connection Succeeded 10g path;11g path  sde:oracle11g                    Connection Succeeded 11g path;10g path  sde:oracle10g                    Connection Succeeded 11g path;10g path  sde:oracle11g                    Connection Succeeded 10g path                  sde:oracle10g                    Connection Succeeded 10g path                  sde:oracle11g                    Failed:  Server library could not be loaded 11g path                  sde:oracle10g                    Failed:  Server library could not be loaded 11g path                  sde:oracle11g                    Connection Succeeded[/INDENT] If ArcGIS was simply looking for the first Oracle client in the system  path, then errors would be generated if the SDE direct connect string  called a different Oracle version than the first one in the system path. ... View more