Latest Contributions by JoshuaBixby

And thank you for providing additional information to clarify the situation. ... View more

It was the fact that 10.0 was connecting that was throwing me off.  Accepting that ArcGIS Desktop 10 direct connects using Oracle 11g to SDE 9.2 should not work but do, the behavior of 9.3/9.3.1 and 10.1 make sense. Thanks. ... View more

OK, bear with me on this one.... I understand why 11g server DLLs were created for SDE 9.3 and later and not SDE 9.2 or earlier.  That being said, I am trying to understand why I can direct connect using Oracle 11g client in ArcGIS Desktop 10 to SDE 9.2 but why I can't direct connect using Oralce 11g client in ArcGIS Desktop 9.3/9.3.1 to that very same SDE 9.2?  Is the fact it works in ArcGIS Desktop 10 a bug, i.e., it works but it shouldn't really work, or was there a change in support between ArcGIS Desktop 9.3/9.3.1 and ArcGIS 10? The situation I am seeing: [INDENT]ArcGIS Desktop 9.3.1 Oracle 11g Direct Connect to SDE 9.2  -->  Doesn't work ArcGIS Desktop 10 Oracle 11g Direct Connect to SDE 9.2     -->  Works ArcGIS Desktop 10.1 Oracle 11g Direct Connect to SDE 9.2  -->  Doesn't work [/INDENT]From everything said in response to my original question, none of the above scenarios should work, right? [INDENT] [/INDENT] ... View more

I did come across the Help page that shows 10.1 is not compatible for direct connects to SDE 9.2.  That being said, if backwards compatibility for 3 versions is an Esri standard design, why doesn't ArcGIS 9.3.1 SP2 support direct connect using Oracle 11g client to SDE 9.2 SP6 but ArcGIS 10.0 SP2 does?  ArcGIS 9.3.1 is a whole lot closer to 9.2 than 10.0. ... View more

Does the SDE user password meet strong password requirements?  When running Mixed Mode authentication, the default is for SQL Server to enforce strong password requirements.  I don't recall the exact error codes at the moment, but I definitely ran into strong password problems once at the same installation steps you are at now. ... View more

Oops, forgot to ask, are you trying to install ArcGIS Server Workgroup or Enterprise edition?  If you are installing ArcGIS Server Workgroup, then ArcSDE Workgroup is included on the same disc.  The separate discs I spoke of earlier apply to ArcGIS Server Enterprise. ... View more

Although ArcSDE was "integrated" or "incorporated" into ArcGIS Server, that was pretty much just for licensing and marketing purposes.  From a technical perspective, ArcSDE remains a separate product in most ways from the rest of ArcGIS Server.  Before media downloads directly from ESRI, it use to be the ArcGIS Server Media Kits would include 2 DVDs for ArcSDE, one for Windows and one for UNIX/Linux.  What you are looking for is a separate ISO file or DVD for ArcSDE. ... View more

How ArcGIS Server directly connects to ArcSDE on SQL Server depends upon how the SQL Server server and client are configured. According to a SQL Server 2008 R2 MSDN web page on Configuring Client Network Protocols, " he protocols available for SQL Server clients are TCP/IP, Named Pipes, VIA, and shared memory." Both the server and client can allow or disallow certain protocols as well as prioritize them. Since VIA is deprecated and shared memory is only local, that leaves Named Pipes and TCP/IP. Unless you have modified defaults, I am guessing your configuration is using TCP/IP. ... View more

If you are interested in a bit of background on WM and WMAS at ESRI, you might want to check out the following older forum thread: [INDENT]ArcGIS Desktop - Projections, Projection Engine forum - Why are there 2 Web Mercator PCS's? [/INDENT] ... View more

Although I have been working with ArcGIS 10 Pre-Release, the last time I dealt directly with this issue was ArcGIS 9.3.1 so what I am about to say may not apply to the new release. For the datasets I have worked with, the extent of the spatial indexes on GEOMETRY and GEOGRAPHY types had a large impact on performance in ArcMap, both drawing and querying the data.  For whatever reason, ArcCatalog would usually define large spatial index extents (on the order of projection extents) for data loaded into SDE using the GEOMETRY type.  If my memory serves me, usually just deleting and rebuilding the spatial index in ArcCatalog would define better spatial index extents and result in better performing spatial indexes.  I do remember, though, rebuilding a couple spatial indexes in SQL Server Management Studio. For the data our organizaiton was working with, we could never get the GEOMETRY type to perform as well as SDEBINARY, but we could get the performance differences down to acceptable levels.  For example, redraw/refresh times in ArcMap for a couple of dense datasets went from 15 to 25 seconds down to 2 to 5 seconds.  Not great but acceptable since we needed the data stored with GEOMETRY type. Since SQL Server 2008 was the first version to support native spatial types, I am mostly chalking the performance differences up to the DBMS and not ArcSDE (not to say there isn't room for improvement with ArcSDE).  For example, SQL Server 2008 SP1 addressed a fairly substantial issue with the SQL Server Query Optimizer where poor costing information was having the optimizer ignore spatial indexes in favor of full table scans.  The workaround at the time, before the service pack, was to force the use of the index through a HINT, but ESRI had valid reasons for not wanting to re-write code to always force the index.  As spatial support matures in SQL Server, I expect the native types to become more viable. I have generally been pleased with the performance of Query Layers in ArcGIS 10, so I may re-visit those datasets to check whether the experiences we had with 9.3.1 are still valid with 10. ... View more

garym, thanks.  Your response clarifies this "new" functionality for me.  When I posed the question, I understood the concept of one-way, child-to-parent replication, but the documentation made it sound like it was entirely new conceptually.  I was aware of the technical article you referenced; in fact, that article was part of what motivated the question. I agree, there is a certain ease of use that comes with a conceptual functionality being integrated into a core product rather than implemented through a nuanced procedure. ... View more