PrintWeb services have the potential to expose your data to a much wider audience than may have previously seen it. But beyond allowing simple visualization of the data, web services can also permit editing and creation of data over the web. This type of "web editing" can allow field workers and people who typically don't use GIS to contribute valuable information to your database, information that you might not otherwise get.
For all its benefits, exposing a database on the web comes with some challenges. How do you protect your data from becoming corrupted? If you put a database on the cloud, how do you keep it in sync with the database in your office? And what happens if multiple users edit a feature at the same time?
This lesson explores some of the requirements and challenges related to making a GIS database available for editing on the web. You'll put some data in a SQL Server Express database on your EC2 instance, and you will use that data to design a map for web editing. You'll learn about how ArcGIS Server provides a special type of "feature service" that is engineered to allow editing through a web service. Finally, you'll make a web application that allows others to edit your data over the Internet.
Throughout this lesson, you'll be guided with step by step instructions. At the end of the lesson, you'll post a screenshot of your work. Pay close attention to what you are doing, because next week you will be assigned a project in which you will have to think through these processes on your own.
Lesson Objectives
At the successful completion of this lesson you should be able to:
- create a feature service;
- create an application for editing your feature service using Web App Builder;
- understand GIS databases and web editing;
- understand how to set up your ArcGIS Server for web and feature services; and
- understand how to design a web map to support editing.
Deliverables
- Complete: L03: Assignment
- Participate: L03: Discussion