ArcGIS Desktop – Using ArcGIS Desktop with SQL Server Spatial Backend

arcgis-10.0arcgis-desktopsql server

I'm wondering how best to use ArcGIS Desktop and SQL Server 2008 together. At the moment we run manual imports and exports between sql 2008 and arcgis 10 shape files. With sql 2008 having a geography data type I was expecting it to be simple to replace to the map files with a relational database, but for some reason it doesn't seem as simple as I expected.

Has anyone got any ideas how I can use sql 2008 for data storage and do away with shape files? I've read about arcsde, but really don't understand the point of another layer. No idea what it's actually supposed to do.

Best Answer

Since you've tagged the question for ArcGIS 10, check out Query Layers: http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/What_is_a_query_layer/00s50000000n000000/

I've used it to connect to non-ArcSDE SQL Server 2008 databases.

You get to it from the file menu:

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And there is a couple of other screens that walk you through defining what ArcMap needs to know to make the query layer.

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(Be sure that your query includes a geometry field and a unique id field)

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You'll want to test it out, since I know it was buggy at release and SP1.

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