Legacy Geocoding / Routing Services Retirement

[SteveCole]

Just got the email announcing the retirement of several services at the end of this year and want to clarify something. In one of the apps I'm developing with the JS API, I use routeTask and specify

http://tasks.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/NetworkAnalysis/ESRI_Route_NA/NAServer/Route

as the source. Am I correct in my understanding that this service is, indeed, one of the services going away and, should I want to continue to use and ESRI provided solution, I must now use one of the subscription based services?

Thanks!
Steve

[RichardDaniels]

The services reference in the announcement are also included with ArcGIS Desktop[ATTACH=CONFIG]23840[/ATTACH], how will there retirement impact Esri's desktop applications which were sold based on the availability of these, or similar, services?

Geocoding
�?� European Address Locator
�?� North American Address Locator
�?� North American Address Locator (ArcGIS 10 style)
�?� United States Street Locator
�?� United States Street Locator (ArcGIS 10 style)
�?� World Places Locator

[TundeOwoola]

I just recieved this annoucement also. Steve and Danielri, you both made a good point. Our ArcGIS Server application is pointing to the Route task. Besides, we have several desktop users (ArcGIS Advanced), with floating and standalone licenses depending on the geocode service. Forcing customers on maintenance or otherwise to a paid subscription service will simply not work for us. I am unhappy with this development, users should push back and send a message to ESRI that we might be forced to look for alternatives other than ESRI.

[EdPoole]

I, like everyone above, am also a bit confused.  We currently use the routing services in our ArcGIS Server applications as well as our 7 floating liscenses on desktop.  Does this mean we will be forced to use a pay service, if so I would like to know ASAP since we will probably need to address and examine the monetary impact on our buisness... 

Ed

[DougDautel]

This is truly an awful idea and i hope they reconsider. I work for a small company and pay plenty of money each year to esri via BAO online and a maintenance agreement. I'm always using these geocoding services and now they demand I pay and subscribe to arcgisonline which is way more than i need just to simply geocode address tables.

[JeffJacobson]

As I understand the documentation, geocoding for a single location will still work, you'll only need to pay for batch operations and / or if you are storing the geocoded results.

One alternative to consider is MapQuest's Open Data Map APIs, which use data from OpenStreetMap.

[RichardDaniels]

As a side note, the 'no cost' Geocoder option will return a graphic representing the geocoded location.

If you select these graphics and use the Graphic to Feature command you should be able to get a feature class or shapefile with the locations. This is described at http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=Converting_between_graphics_and_featur... and still applies to v10.

[SarahOsborne]

Esri is focusing its development efforts on services that are accessible through ArcGIS Online, including the new World Geocoding and World Routing service offerings.  These services are more up to date and offer more features and worldwide coverage.

The World Geocoding service allows single line and multi line address input and places and other points of interest worldwide from the same endpoint.  The reference data is more recent, and many of the locators have been extensively overhauled for better results.

The World Routing service is also worldwide in scope.  One of the major new features is that both current and historical traffic can be used in the route calculations.  Other network services are also available including drive time and closest facility.

Because there are new offerings, the older, legacy geocoding and routing services are on the road to retirement. 

A note about geocoding:  whether using the new or legacy geocoding services, there are two general use cases:

• Geosearch Services: "Geosearch" is about locating a feature or point of interest and then having the map zoom to that location. The result might be displayed on the map, but the result is not stored in any way for later use. Requests of this type require no ArcGIS Online subscription. 


• Geocoding Services: The primary purpose of these services is to convert an address to an x,y coordinate and append the result to an existing record in a database. The results are stored for later use. Mapping is not always involved, but placing the results on a map may be part of a workflow. Batch geocoding falls into this category. Requests of this type have always required a subscription.  Before there were ArcGIS Online subscriptions, users should have purchased a World Geocoding subscription.  In the past, some users have inadvertently misused the batch geocoding service by exceeding the limit of 1,000 addresses/geocodes per year.  This use exceeded the terms of use as documented in the license agreement.

More details about connecting to and using the new ArcGIS Online services can be found in the Resource Center.

• Geocoding


• Routing

[C_EHoward]

I am also confused about how to replace the references to the legacy services with the new supported geocoding services.
I just tried to look at the World Geocoding service on ArcGIS Online from here
http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=305f2e55e67f4389bef269669fc2e284


The REST endpoint on the page appears to be down
http://geocode.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/World/GeocodeServer

How do I change my service in my web map app to use the new Geosearch service? I have not been able to find documentation that shows the URL to use except for the one above. Is that URL good for both types of services? Or do you have to specify geosearch somehow?
thanks