The ArcGIS Online Data Appliance

November 5th, 2007 · 21 Comments · ArcGIS Image Server, ArcGIS Server, ESRI, Google, Google Earth

There has been some discussion on my blog about the ArcGIS Online Data Appliance. Most ESRI users already know what is on the thing because they have had access to the ArcGIS Online Beta.

The ArcGIS Appliance provides terabytes of pre-rendered U.S. nationwide and worldwide data that you can host on your own secure server. This data consists of 2D maps and 3D globes that are optimized for publishing with ArcGIS Server and includes worldwide imagery, street map, shaded relief, and elevation data.

So, does this excite anyone? Google of course has their own product and I know I’ve heard other companies getting ready to offer such products using ArcGIS Server and/or ArcGIS Image Server. Personally I have to think this will be a huge hit with companies that are tied to the ESRI stack (which is probably its target marketplace).

If you want to see the costs of this product, the online PDF is here.

Tags: arcgis·arcgis image server·arcgis online·arcgis online data appliance·ArcGIS Server·ESRI·Google·Google Earth·google earth enterprise·licensing

21 responses so far ↓

1 KJ // Nov 5, 2007 at 12:01 pm

I like it, but usually only need data at the county or multi-county region - so basically I can get a lot of that on-line for free already, without a real need to mosiac it all into a seamless data set. But I am interested in it - really using ArcGIS Online, well online, is sometimes not the greatest because of speed, so I recon it would solve this.

But what I really want, and I have told ESRI, is an ArcWeb Services Applicance - that would be cool.

Right now its tricky because I can make a web app with ArcGIS Server, or with ArcWeb Services - with AWS there is the Flex API and widgets, and in a few hours I made some eye popping test apps - not quite the same user experience as ArcGIS Server + WebADF and an Ajax viewer.

I sometimes have a need to build web apps for hermetically sealed networks - e.g. no Internet. But I have a hunch that ESRI will come out with an arcweb services appliance too, or else somehow integrate arcweb services into ArcGIS server, or something like that. I hope. Then they could sell a super-mega-appliacnce - ArcGIS Server + web and mobile ADF, along with ArcWeb Services and the ArcGIS Online data, and Image Server all pre-deployed on an inline server. Oops, I just drooled a little. But think of the price tag
2 J Wallis // Nov 5, 2007 at 1:18 pm

That is a pretty good price. I’d pay a few thousand extra to be able to swap out the appliance yearly for more recent data.
3 Jack Dangermond // Nov 5, 2007 at 2:11 pm

what’s Google’s price for comparison?
4 J Wallis // Nov 5, 2007 at 2:18 pm

it is 6 figures as well. but you aren’t going to be able to take google’s appliance and serve it up as WMS, it only works with GE or their fusion product.
5 DEWright_CO // Nov 5, 2007 at 4:04 pm

I agree with Jack, the first question gets to be what is the cost comparison between the two. And for that cost how often do you get a solid update that is fresh/original data versus just the regular canned ESRI CD/DVD update?
6 Tim Maddle // Nov 5, 2007 at 6:40 pm

@DEWright_CO, that’s my question, too. I have a hunch that within the next couple of years there is going to be tons of sub-meter aerial imagery in the public domain. I don’t take it as a good sign that the San Diego Convention Center image shown on Page 7 of the ESRI brochure looks pretty similar to the one available for free from the USGS WMS feed.
7 Cellulose // Nov 5, 2007 at 9:35 pm

ArcWeb services is/was also available as an appliance, but it’s quite pricey (think GE Appliance prices)… To get prices, you have to talk to your account rep.
8 J Wallis // Nov 6, 2007 at 5:47 am

the people who are going to win will be the ones who figure out how to deliver newly shot imagery to a distributed network of these intranet appliances. I’m thinking something along the lines of bittorrent and AmericaView.
9 kj // Nov 6, 2007 at 7:25 am

“ArcWeb services is/was also available as an appliance, but it’s quite pricey (think GE Appliance prices)… To get prices, you have to talk to your account rep.”

I did, a couple of weeks ago - they said they do not have that at this time. How sure are you that they do?
10 Cellulose // Nov 6, 2007 at 9:16 am

I was very sure about 4-6 months ago when we asked about it. I guess they’ve stopped offering it.
11 Cellulose // Nov 6, 2007 at 9:21 am

“the people who are going to win will be the ones who figure out how to deliver newly shot imagery to a distributed network of these intranet appliances. “

That’s an interesting concept for updating a “farm” of these appliances… though I think most of those tend to use a centralized NAS/SANS solution.

If you’re talking about distributing to clients, I think most of them don’t want internet delivery (otherwise, why are they hosting it in house). Most of the government customers I’ve met are using the equipment on isolated networks that can’t reach the internet anyway…
12 J Wallis // Nov 6, 2007 at 9:29 am

Thank goodness other people besides the government use GIS.

A secure link via exchanged tokens to a central distribution point is acceptable. It is no different than what we use to pull across aggregated searches to our Metacarta appliance.

I’d still accept a reasonable amount of downtime if they offered a physical swap out service, but being able to suck down and integrate ad hoc imagery updates (securely) will be the killer app.

a single entity reaching out and getting updates while all end users point at the intranet box is very acceptable in most organizations.
13 Cellulose // Nov 6, 2007 at 9:45 am

Other people use GIS? From the way ESRI and Google market to government customers, you’d think they were the only people who exist.

I’m still skeptical of the network downloads… I mean how many organizations have a big, fat OC48 connection to a backbone provider anyway?
14 J Wallis // Nov 6, 2007 at 10:35 am

Well, I know I do…so I would be a target customer.
15 Kevin // Nov 6, 2007 at 8:42 pm

@DEWright:
Looks like the update is based off what you buy:

Data Updates—If ArcGIS Data Appliance Renewal fees are purchased, licensed data collections are updated on an annual basis for Standard Renewal and a semiannual basis for Premium Renewal and delivered on disk drives to be replaced and installed by the user in the ArcGIS Data Appliance.
16 J Wallis // Nov 7, 2007 at 12:32 pm

sounds like I need to contact my ESRI rep. They apparently have thought of everything.
17 Tim Maddle // Nov 18, 2007 at 9:09 am

Great, I’m sure we’d all like a first-hand account of the capabilities of the appliance. For those of us without the big budget, I’m pretty sure that MapServer can be setup to be an excellent basic image server, and I’m working on that project now.

Based on the development of Image Server (which will be a part of AGS in 9.3, not a separate product) and this data appliance, does it seem to any else that ESRI is signaling the end of the idea of storing rasters in the SDE?
18 Cellulose // Nov 19, 2007 at 9:15 am

I think the SDE Raster is dying, but not due to either of those.

The Appliance is a turn-key solution for serving up pre-built imagery. ArcSDE would/could still be used for custom imagery, etc. AFAIK, they won’t sell you the appliance and load your imagery on it.

Image Server is designed to reduce the lag time between image acquisition and delivery. It’s more expensive to scale up or to get the hardware for big deployments.

I suspect the advent of the Map Cache and image tiling on the server-side will kill the SDE Raster.
19 Tim Maddle // Nov 19, 2007 at 8:03 pm

Cellulose, I would argue that ImageServer, in particular, was designed specifically as an SDE Raster “killer”. I know that in my personal case, I was looking forward to ImageServer specifically for that purpose, to be rid of this danged process of creating SDE raster catalogs and mosaics. ImageServer might be expensive to scale up for large deployments, but that seems to be the case with AGS, in general.

Alas, Image Server was not in the budget. My little MapServer tool isn’t too bad. It’s not quite as fast as I would like, but I’ve been testing with the aerials on a USB drive, which has to hurt performance.
20 Cellulose // Nov 20, 2007 at 9:10 am

Tim–

You’re probably right… though I think Image Server is filling a gap that SDE Raster was never designed to fill, but is frequently used to fill it. Either way, we won’t see ESRI pushing the SDE raster very hard anymore.

If anything, they’ll probably push the FGDB raster harder than the SDE raster.
21 J Wallis // Nov 21, 2007 at 7:04 am

Image Server is getting put into AGS anyways….with ArcIMS going away soon Customers will need a way to serve up large seamless rasters and the way AGS currently handles it doesn’t work well. It seems that the longer you wait the more likely you are to get cool products like AGS and Image Server for “free” just for keeping your maintenance up to date.

I’m still waiting on a new and improved metadata server solution. The current ArcIMS solution is junk. I think it is the only thing keeping ESRI from dumping ArcIMS altogether.