ArcIMS (standing for Arc

Internet Map Server Internet Map Server (IMS) provide maps through the Internet usually as images. One standard specification for such a server is the OGC Web Map Service A Web Map Service (WMS) is a standard protocol developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium in ...

) is a

Web Map Server A Web Map Service (WMS) is a standard protocol developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium in 1999 for serving georeferenced map images over the Internet. These images are typically produced by a map server from data provided by a GIS database. ...

produced by

Esri Esri (; Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 43% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS ...

accessible through a web browser. It is a

GIS A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...

that is designed to serve maps across the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Sometimes these maps are just static images allowing simple panning and zooming, while others are more complex pages. Examples of interactive maps served with ArcIMS include maps with layers that can be turned on and off, or with features containing attributes that can be queried.

Implementation

The core of ArcIMS consists of a spatial server which processes most of the map-related services. On the server side, ArcIMS connector sits on top of a web server and ArcIMS component and Application server works behind the scenes. On the client side, the viewers can be thin clients, custom clients or

desktop applications such as ArcMap, ArcExplorer, or ArcPad. ArcIMS uses Esri's ArcXML to receive and respond to requests from the client. The data behind ArcIMS is usually stored in

Shapefile The shapefile format is a geospatial vector data format for geographic information system (GIS) software. It is developed and regulated by Esri as a mostly open specification for data interoperability among Esri and other GIS software product ...

format (an open specification) or in an

ArcSDE ArcSDE (''SDE'' for ''Spatial Database Engine'') is a server-software sub-system (produced and marketed by Esri) that aims to enable the usage of Relational Database Management Systems for spatial data. The spatial data may then be used as part o ...

RDBMS A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relation ...

database. The Data Delivery Extension (DDE), an extension to the ArcIMS product, delivers data to users in a data format and coordinate system of their own choosing, in order to have access to data in a format compatible with their local GIS applications. Esri no longer supports ArcIMS, having replaced its functionality with ArcGIS for Server in 2010 and with ArcGIS Online (AGOL).

Version history

* 2000 June - ArcIMS 3.0 released * 2001 May - ArcIMS 3.1 released * 2002 April - ArcIMS 4.0 released * 2003 February - ArcIMS 4.0.1 released * 2004 May - ArcIMS 9.0 released * 2005 May - ArcIMS 9.1 released * 2006 November - ArcIMS 9.2 released * 2008 June - ArcIMS 9.3 released * 2009 April - ArcIMS 9.3.1 released * 2010 June - ArcIMS 10.0 released

External links

Esri ArcIMS page

Introduction to ArcXML

Footnotes

{{Esri Software Esri software Web Map Services