ArcGIS Server Architecture

ArcGIS Server is a comprehensive platform for publishing enterprise-level GIS applications. It provides a framework for creating and configuring GIS applications and services to meet various client needs, this is an abstract description of ArcGIS Server. What role does ArcGIS Server play in GIS applications?

People who have used ArcGIS desktop applications know that there are various GIS tools available in the desktop environment. For example, ArcMap and arcglobe can be used to display GIS data, and address locator can be used based on location addressing, you can use the geoprocessing tool of arctoolbox to analyze data. These include different levels of GIS functions. At the underlying level, ArcObjects is used to implement these functions.

From the perspective of ArcGIS Server, we no longer consider whether the data to be processed is the mxd document of ArcMAP, The 3DD document of arcglobe, or the Address locators, we use the concept of services to describe them. These services can be map services, globe services, geocode services, and GIS resources rely on these services, when you need to share a map on the GIS server, you can use the mxd of the map to define a map service. It can be seen that the purpose of ArcGIS Server is to host various services and provide these service resources for client applications. In addition, ArcGIS Server provides a management program to control and manage services.

The ArcGIS Server architecture can be used to describe:

GIS Server

Host various GIS resources, such as maps, globes, and Address locators, and encapsulate them as services for client applications.

The GIS server consists of server ojbect Manager (SOM) and Server Object containers (SOCs ). It can be seen from the naming that one SOM and one or more SOC are used. The client sends a request to the som, and the SOM provides the allocated resources to the client and schedules and manages the SOC through the som.

Web Server

The Web server includes the deployment of web applications and web services, all of which use service resources on the GIS server.

Clients

The clients mentioned here are diverse. They can be web clients, mobile devices, Internet services connected to ArcGIS Server over HTTP, or ArcGIS desktop applications connected to ArcGIS Server local services over LAN/WAN.

Data Server

It contains the GIS resources of the published services on the GIS server, which can be mxd documents, Geodatabase, toolbox, etc.

Manager and ArcCatalog administrators

Both of them can be used to publish and manage GIS resources as services. The difference is that one is to manage on the web page, and the other is on the desktop catalog. As shown in the figure, they are targeted at different levels.

ArcGIS Desktop content authors

Various GIS resources need to be customized using various ArcGIS desktop software. If you need to generate a cache for the map service, you can use arccatalog to create a cache.

This article references the official ArcGIS Server documentation.