Latest Contributions by danan

‎06-30-2012

Survey results are now available: Geodatabase Modeling and Design Tool Survey quantitative results

‎06-30-2012

Survey results are now available: Geodatabase Modeling and Design Tool Survey quantitative results

‎06-16-2012

I just recieved ESRI's mass mailing about the cloud. They claim to be first. Thats a bald face lie. Cloud GIS is provided by lots of people including, well CouldGIS.com. I digress. There are OGC standards for cloud GIS computing and using multithreaded worker applications for geoprocessing. The "cloud" part can be centralized or decentralized (for example the method the SETI utiliyzes is decentralized). There are already methods to provide what you are looking for, it just isnt in the ArcGIS toolkit. I think you would be better served to find a data cloud provider and not bother petitioning ESRI. The lock-in to their data types and software really limits what you can do with your data. ArcGIS online is what it is, but what you are searching for is out there. Thanks Jason. Haven't read the mailing you're referencing. Could be a garden variety half truth of the sort one often finds in marketing. True in some limited sense and/or unstated sub-context. Par for the course in promotional lit from most vendors. Marketers and developers aren't always on the same page. So I might give them a pass there. Glad to hear there are OGC standards for GIS cloud computing that vendors can be judged against and held accountable to. That's encouraging. Customers can and should petition vendors to satisfy their business needs. While it may be naive to believe we'll get everything we ask for we may at least get a portion of it. So it's worthwhile to try. A good case can be made for customer activism catalyzing innovation. SETI is an interesting case of citizens donating spare compute time to advance non-commercial research. Perhaps not so interesting to for-profit entities like cloud vendors. In an era when NASA receives only one half of one penny out of every tax dollar (I know SETI is now private and no longer associated with NASA), I wish there were more opportunities to donate spare compute time to it and other worthwhile non-profit research causes. A product like ArcGIS Online often gets marketed as a way for citizens to donate their "cognitive surplus" (to borrow a term from Clay Shirky). But not computational surplus.

‎06-13-2012

During a recent demo of ArcGIS Online it occurred to me there's much work to be done before it becomes a complete Cloud GIS platform. It may represent a Cloud Pattern. But it's one small step for Esri. And not a giant leap for the GIS Community. At present, ArcGIS Online seems to be only two things: 1) A platform for hosting services (bravo, quite nice) 2) A collaboration platform Did I miss something in failing to be awe-struck? The real power of the Cloud seems absent, e.g. being able to send large analysis workloads to the cloud and receive an answer; and running ArcGIS Desktop completely in the Cloud. So I started an idea on ideas.arcgis.com to encourage more rapid development of ArcGIS Online: Make ArcGIS Online a Complete Cloud GIS Platform; not just a hosted services and collaboration platform http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaView?id=087E00000004EhHIAU Hope I'm mistaken, as I often am, and there's a lot more depth and breadth to ArcGIS Online than what I saw in the presentation. What else does ArcGIS Online presently have to offer that's escaped my attention?

‎04-18-2012

Hi, thanks for your questions. ArcGIS Online is not a SaaS version of desktop, it provides organizations with a cloud-based, collaborative content management system for maps, apps, data, and other geographic information. It's about making the organizations GIS, maps and data available to everyone. With it you can make and use the organizations maps and data in your work. Think of it as empowering everyone to participate. One good place to start with what it can do for an organization is with the detailed help system and videos. Your organization can also participate in the beta program to see first hand what it can do. Start here with the help system: http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisonline/help/010q/010q0000007m000000.htm The ArcGIS Online blog is also full of good info: http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/ -Paul- Will have to check out the videos and learn more about how this fits into the Esri ecosystem. Thanks for explaining its current incarnation: as a collaboration tool, a publishing tool (with basic editing capabilities) and a medium for getting geospatial data, maps, and apps into the hands of non-GIS professionals. That still squares with what I've heard about Desktop's place--where you go for heavy-duty authoring, analysis, etc. Could ArcGIS Online evolve into a SaaS offering with Desktop feature parity? Or would current lack of bandwidth make this problematic? Those are rhetorical questions as this would be future dev. It would be interesting to apply the Subscription model to a Desktop-Like-Object in the Cloud. No Big Licensing Costs Up Front would break down barriers to heavy-duty analysis work, etc. I've been thinking a lot about metered licensing that would mirror and complement metered infrastructure. But maybe I'm thinking about it the wrong way. And now I'll get off my virtual soap box. 🙂

‎04-14-2012

Cross-posting to the geodatabase forum. Please take discussions there if that's the most appropriate place for it: http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/55240-ArcSDE-security-ST_GEOMETRY-EXTPROC-listener-exploits-and-hardening-the-SDE-schema?p=189868#post189868 Also please consider: "Harden" ArcSDE repository on Oracle: do not grant privileges to PUBLIC role unnecessarily http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaView?id=087300000008HY6AAM

‎04-14-2012

At ArcSDE 9.3.1 for Oracle I didn't like what I saw regarding out of the box security for ArcSDE: "Harden" ArcSDE repository on Oracle: do not grant privileges to PUBLIC role unnecessarily http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaView?id=087300000008HY6AAM Unless I'm mistaken, the SDE schema / ArcSDE repository violates all three basic principles of security: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability as described in the Idea link above. There's a KB article out there somewhere saying how to manually harden the SDE repository and that's welcome. But it should probably be a bit more front and center in the install documentation--e.g. if this has not been done already, linked to the KB article from the install docs please. It may not occur to someone up front to harden the SDE repository. The vast majority of security exploits are evidently caused by misconfiguration according to Cloud Security expert Steve Riley (during his spectacular 2012 DevSummit Keynote--view it online). Presuming that's true, it might be nice to alert folks up front what countermeasures they might take. Rather than learn what ought to have been done up front post-breach... ArcSDE Security Improvements at 10.1? I've not looked at privileges granted at ArcSDE 10 to see if there's been improvement. Hoping such is the case at ArcSDE 10.1 Final. While I understand hardening the SDE schema requires a bit more work up front (e.g. revoking grants from PUBLIC and granting to data owners, etc per the KB article), it's an investment worth considering. Security Issues With EXTPROC Oracle Listener for ST_GEOMETRY Spatial SQL Functions? Someone added a comment to the Idea entry above questioning the use of EXTPROC, e.g. presumably the listener for ST_GEOMETRY spatial SQL functions. The only best practice I know of, one mentioned in Esri documentation and one we've implemented, is to create a second, less privileged user to run a second, dedicated Oracle listener for ST_GEOMETRY. Are there ways to harden this further? What are the issues if any? No system is 100% secure unless it's unplugged. But what other due diligence, relatively low effort / low cost items can ArcSDE admins perform to ensure ArcSDE is more secure than what one gets out of the box?

‎04-12-2012

Is ArcGIS Online for Organizations a metered, Software As A Service (SaaS) deployment of ArcGIS Desktop in the Cloud? Or is it a subscription based managed map services offering? If advanced workloads can't be sent to ArcGIS Online for Organizations, or if it's not ArcGIS Desktop being served virtually through the Cloud, I'm wondering what it's Unique Value Proposition is to customers. A short while ago, I posted the following Idea @ ideas.arcgis.com. This was before I started hearing more about ArcGIS Online for Organizations / Enterprises. Somewhere it was described as "GIS Without the Box." Virtual ArcGIS Desktop subscriptions might fit that description. But I'm not sure ArcGIS Online for Organizations does. Are there any good podcasts or video presentations that clarify what ArcGIS Online for Organizations/Enterprises offers vs. plain old ArcGIS Online (which users evidently find limiting)? I've also heard the term "GIS As A Service." Not quite sure of the scope or what that really means. GIS As A Service (GaaS?), to me, would be the ability to send large geospatial workloads to the cloud on a pay-as-you-go basis. Or metered, remote access to ArcGIS Desktop (or ArcGIS for Desktop at the 10.1 release). Is ArcGIS Online for Organizations *really* Software As A Service if ArcGIS Desktop is not in the mix? Perhaps it's a new kind of software being offered as a service; but not the type of traditional geospatial software GIS Analysts are familiar with, right? Offer ArcGIS Desktop through the Software As A Service (SaaS) Cloud model for both deployment and licensing http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaView?id=08730000000bx0DAAQ

‎04-08-2012

Promoted. Recently, a friend working for local government mentioned the same issue--needing to do a few tasks a year with an extension and not being able to cost-justify the purchase. Participation in the Local Government ELA was too expensive. I don't know if various negotiated ELAs are "all-you-can-eat" affairs. But Pay As You Go would seem to fit better with the spirit of the Cloud. The shorter term ArcGIS Server licenses--e.g. 1 month, 3 months, etc--are a nice improvement. It would be terrific to see the same implemented for extensions if metered licensing for ArcGIS is not implemented. A utility or on-demand pricing model may work for GIS software. It does for Infrastructure in the Cloud. To the original Idea posted, would ArcGIS Online subscriptions help you do on-demand geoprocessing of various kinds? I'd be interested to know if ArcGIS Online for Organizations (?) and/or ArcGIS Online for Enterprises (a subset of the former?) would allow you to send workloads to the Cloud and pay as you go. This seems like something more customers will demand as a logical consequence of, and acclimitization to, paying for metered Infrastructure. I'm hoping to learn more about those offerings over the next few months--possibly at the 2012 Int'l UC. Here are some similar license-themed ideas: Offer ArcGIS Desktop through the Software As A Service (SaaS) Cloud model for both deployment and licensing https://community.esri.com/ideas/5281 Offer metered licensing for ArcGIS Server in the Cloud https://community.esri.com/ideas/5351

‎04-04-2012

Does Esri have plans to offer ArcGIS for Desktop via Software As A Service (SaaS)? Preferably coupled with a metered / utility licensing model. Pay only for what you use. That's when you unlock the full potential of the Cloud. Seems like many customers struggle to deploy ArcGIS Desktop via Citrix. Might be nice to leap-frog and outsource config and maintenance to someone with that specific expertise. I created an entry for this on ideas.arcgis.com--a feedback channel more customers should participate in: http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaView?id=08730000000bx0DAAQ I'm still puzzled when I learn various GIS colleagues don't know about ideas.arcgis.com. It's a powerful tool for influencing Esri's Product Roadmap. The ability of the Ideas site to shape products that fit customer needs rises in proportion to the number of people using it. So use it. What a neat thing to be able to quantify customer interest for various features and then apportion developer resources appropriately. Because those resources are finite. Or discover and implement a cool customer Idea even if its ranked popularity isn't high--just because it's something that Just Makes Sense to do or is The Right Thing To Do for customers.

‎04-04-2012

To quote Steve Riley from the 2012 DevSummit Keynote: "If you're still paying for it when it's off, it's not the Cloud." Though I may be quoting out of context, that line struck me. The keynote video is now online so see for yourself. Iconoclastic and entertaining. Check it out. The rest of what follows is my own sentiment alone. Elasticity in computation should be accompanied by elasticity in licensing. Pay for what you need when when you need it. That's a utility model. ArcGIS Server in the Cloud todaY is a BYOL (Bring Your Own License) affair. And those license terms are legacy--a legacy perhaps not worth preserving. This carries the past to our present and future, placing constraints on an otherwise disruptive, evolutionary, and revolutionary technology. Ideally one should be able to spin up whatever one likes, for however long one requires, to meet an ongoing or transient business need (freedom to experiment?). And then pay only for what's used. Elasticity is a pillar of the Cloud. And those who build upon it should perhaps request more solid and less wispy foundations. The Cloud is both a technology and a business model. I can't see Dave Chapelle's hypothetical entrepreurs; the "two guys and a credit card" from the 2010 DevSummit Keynote, being able to leverage ArcGIS Server in the Cloud with existing license terms. Entrepreneurs, and those in government who think like entrepreneurs ("Do More With Less" may be incented to go elsewhere for their geospatial Cloud needs without more flexible licensing. So please strongly consider a pay-as-you-grow, metered licensing model for ArcGIS Server. One that fully unlocks the value of Cloud Computing. The good GIS technology can do in the world positively correlates with the number of folks actively using it to solve real-world problems. Cloud computing can potentially help GIS users deploy more resources toward what really matters. The degree to which that potential is realized depends in part on licensing terms. So Think Outside the Polygon and reimagine ArcGIS Server licensing in the Cloud. I personally believe Esri will continue to increase its portfolio of service options. Hopefully it will reimagine pricing and licensing along the way. Like Steve Riley said, albeit in another context about another vendor, "watch this space." Here are some other ideas worth repeating. Offer ArcGIS for Home at ArcEditor (Standard) license level--not just ArcView (Basic) https://community.esri.com/ideas/3895 Offer ArcGIS Server for Home / ArcSDE for Home educational-use programs https://community.esri.com/ideas/5210 Offer ArcGIS Desktop through the Software As A Service (SaaS) Cloud model for both deployment and licensing https://community.esri.com/ideas/5281 Include ArcGIS Desktop with standard EDN subscriptions (Esri Developer Network) https://community.esri.com/ideas/5273 Publish instructor led training lecture and exercise manuals online in PDF format - ArcSDE, ArcGIS Server, ArcGIS Desktop https://community.esri.com/ideas/3682 Include ArcGIS for Home with Esri Enterprise License Agreements (ELAs) https://community.esri.com/ideas/4009 Keynote @ Esri 2012 Dev Summit by Steve Riley of Riverbed Systems: In the Cloud, Everything You Think You Know is Wrong. http://www.esri.com/events/devsummit/videos/video3.html

‎04-03-2012

Thanks for the tip, Jake. I've been familiar with this table but didn't know if it was safe/acceptable to just delete rows for old connections or if I needed to go the sdemon -o kill route. What will happen if we delete an orphaned Direct Connect record in SDE.PROCESS_INFORMATION (Oracle 11gR2, ArcSDE 9.3.1 SP2)? Standard methods following an SDE_ID to a SERVER_ID to an OS process (RHEL 5) won't work because the server process is long gone. Various SDE lock tables reference the old SDE_ID. We don't have an ArcSDE application service so "sdemon" isn't likely to help. Again, there is no associated Oracle process running on the OS. Is there a delete trigger for SDE.PROCESS_INFORMATION that will gracefully clean-up child records in various lock tables? Don't want to corrupt the ArcSDE repository. Or is bouncing the database a safe way to prune SDE.PROCESS_INFORMATION of orphaned connections when one's not running "sdemon."? Or would the following code, posted in 2005, still be valid and safe to run against an active ArcSDE 9.3.1 SP2 Oracle instance. Code taken from the following post: http://forums.esri.com/Thread.asp?c=2&f=59&t=174046 You can execute the following cleanup procedure to purge those rows if it is a concern (but the software will do it when it needs to anyhow) so you do NOT need to shutdown your ArcSDE instance - set SERVEROUTPUT ON DECLARE CURSOR process_list IS SELECT sde_id, owner, nodename FROM sde.process_information; lock_name VARCHAR2(30); lock_handle VARCHAR2(128); lock_status INTEGER; cnt INTEGER DEFAULT 0; BEGIN FOR check_locks IN process_list LOOP lock_name := 'SDE_Connection_ID#' || TO_CHAR (check_locks.sde_id); DBMS_LOCK.ALLOCATE_UNIQUE (lock_name,lock_handle); lock_status := DBMS_LOCK.REQUEST (lock_handle,DBMS_LOCK.X_MODE,0,TRUE); IF lock_status = 0 THEN DELETE FROM sde.process_information WHERE sde_id = check_locks.sde_id; DELETE FROM sde.state_locks WHERE sde_id = check_locks.sde_id; DELETE FROM sde.table_locks WHERE sde_id = check_locks.sde_id; DELETE FROM sde.object_locks WHERE sde_id = check_locks.sde_id; DELETE FROM sde.layer_locks WHERE sde_id = check_locks.sde_id; cnt := cnt + 1; dbms_output.put_line('Removed entry ('||check_locks.sde_id||'): '||check_locks.owner||'/'||check_locks.nodename||''); END IF; END LOOP; DELETE FROM sde.process_information WHERE sde_id NOT IN (SELECT sde_id FROM sde.process_information); DELETE FROM sde.state_locks WHERE sde_id NOT IN (SELECT sde_id FROM sde.process_information); DELETE FROM sde.table_locks WHERE sde_id NOT IN (SELECT sde_id FROM sde.process_information); DELETE FROM sde.object_locks WHERE sde_id NOT IN (SELECT sde_id FROM sde.process_information); DELETE FROM sde.layer_locks WHERE sde_id NOT IN (SELECT sde_id FROM sde.process_information); COMMIT; dbms_output.put_line('Removed '||cnt||' entries.'); END; / This script is also beneficial for cleaning out the process_inforamation table.

‎03-29-2012

Still working this issue. No support ticket has been opened yet as far as I know. At an Oracle 11.2 upgrade and migration seminar yesterday, I asked Roy Swonger (owner of the dev group for various Oracle utilities) what datapump could and could not handle regarding User Defined Types (UDTs)--because he'd mentioned limitations using Oracle Streams (and was promoting Oracle Golden Gate--which sounds quite cool by the way; similar to cross-DB vendor platform GDB replication evidently). He claimed datapump could handle all UDTs but not long/long raw data types and anything having Nested Tables. That answer didn't correspond with what some other Oracle professionals have told me. So, is Esri's ST_GEOMETRY Oracle UDT implemented in some way with Nested Tables? Maybe it's time to post to Oracle-L @ freelists.org to find a Best Practice when migrating versioned Feature Classes containing ST_GEOMETRY columns. Seems difficult to obtain posting privileges there. So if anyone here with posting privileges to Oracle-L would like to crowdsource an answer there, please feel free. The official Oracle forums haven't been the most nurturing environment I've participated in... The upgrade and migration seminar was free and I learned quite a lot from it. Highly recommended to attend if one is coming to a town near you. Check this site for dates: https://blogs.oracle.com/upgrade/ The slides used for the seminar are here: http://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=202202:2:::::P2_SUCHWORT:migrate112 ... or go to the Oracle Upgrade Blog, scroll to the right, and look for a heading named Slides Download Center. Very informative.

‎03-24-2012

A great way to influence Esri's Product Roadmap is to create new feature requests, or vote for existing ones, on Esri's SalesForce.com-powered Ideas web site (http://ideas.arcgis.com): Example: Give me a GUI for ArcSDE http://ideas.arcgis.com/ideaView?id=0873000000086rp I'm personally looking forward to seeing the GDB management capabilities in 10.1 Final having been a "fan" of GDBT over the years.

‎03-24-2012

We use CommVault but will soon switch to NetApp's SnapManager (since we're switching to NetApp storage). Veritas NetBackup may still be a good choice for Enterprise backups (haven't used it in a decade). Legato used to be a chief competitor to Veritas. It's now owned by EMC and known as EMC Networker. Don't know if there's a dependency on EMC storage like SnapManager When you say database server, which database will you be using for ArcGIS Server? If Oracle, consider writing, or having someone else write, a few simple RMAN backup scripts. RMAN is free with licensed Oracle servers and CommVault mostly provides a GUI and writes the RMAN scripts for you. CommVault, like most Enterprise backup software I suspect, is expensive. A friend recently saved his organization 100K by dropping CommVault to back up Oracle servers using RMAN scripts. I believe the total cost of CommVault licenses, including all database agent licenses, equaled or exceeded the entire cost of the org's SAN storage (several hundred thousand dollars). If you really need a GUI for Oracle backups, use Oracle Enterprise Manager. Be mindful with Enterprise backup software that you will typically pay extra for database vendor-specific "agent" licenses (e.g. Oracle, SQL Server, etc) to perform hot/online backups. Carefully consider your backup requirements and choose something that meets, but doesn't grossly exceed, the business need. Don't buy a Cadillac if a Corolla would do. There can be a risk to underspending as well--sometimes you need a Cadillac. Your requirements and business need will help guide the purchase. I'm not presently a backup or storage administrator so that's about as much input as I can provide. I am, however, very interested in NetApp's Snap Manager. This is what we're replacing CommVault with for both SQL Server and Oracle backups. I'm wondering, and don't yet know, if there's also a per-server database agent license cost for Snap Manager. Anyone here use it? Agent costs can add up fast. I'm sure Snap Manager has some wonderful features. But I don't know if they meet a specific requirement. In some large IT organizations, certain purchases can be a foregone conclusion made by one part of the IT Enterprise without consulting other parts of the IT Enterprise. And then you're stuck with it and "must" use it because it is The Standard. If you don't have to plug-in to the rest of your Enterprise's backup regime that gives you a lot more flexibility. Good luck and please let us know how it turns out.

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My Ideas

Latest Contributions by danan

Re: Creating a Data Model with UML?

Re: Geodatabase Modeling and Design SIG and survey @ 2011 Int'l UC

Re: ArcGIS Online not yet a complete Cloud GIS platform?

ArcGIS Online not yet a complete Cloud GIS platform?

Re: Does ArcGIS Online for Organizations = ArcGIS Desktop delivered through Saas?

ArcSDE security - EXTPROC listener for ST_GEOMETRY and hardening the SDE schema

ArcSDE security: ST_GEOMETRY EXTPROC listener exploits and hardening the SDE schema?

Does ArcGIS Online for Organizations = ArcGIS Desktop delivered through Saas?

Re: Pay as Needed Floating License

Re: ArcGIS with Citrix- Performance and Known Issues

Offer metered licensing for ArcGIS Server in the Cloud

Re: Kill only old connections

Re: Best way to move versioned ST_GEOMETRY FCs between Oracle 11gR2 instances?

Re: ArcSDE tool for ArcCatalog Version 10

Re: Systems backup software

Use low isolation map services to support more 4X ...

ArcGIS Server for Home / ArcSDE for Home use (in t...

Re: Best way to move versioned ST_GEOMETRY FCs bet...

Offer ArcGIS Server for Home / ArcSDE for Home edu...

Offer metered licensing for ArcGIS Server in the C...