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I have been using ArcMap (only) for the past two years (read: newbie) in the oil and gas (upstream) industry. I currently have about 200 GB of files (shp, tif, grids, a few fgdb, all sitting in a windows file server) in total, spread over 10 GIS projects. each project folder have their own files and mxd as they are of different regions.

i only learned abt this site a couple of days back and i kept reading about metadata server and spatial server.

I would like to hear from experienced GIS users/administrators here, what are the capabilities /functionalities of metadata servers and spatial server that ArcMap/ArcCatalog are not capable of? Is adding data to mxd / data loading using metadata one of them?

from what i read here, i can search for files much easier with a metadata server than AcrCatalog, and why is that so?

also, can anyone point me to a site that is like a "GIS infrastructure for dummies"?

thanks.

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great question. kudos! Are the metadata server and spatial server you refer to open source? It is a little hard to say what esri is not capable of without knowing what you are looking at. Or perhaps the question is more toward what does esri arcgis server do that arcmap and arccatalog can't? – Brad Nesom Dec 30 '10 at 14:30
i was tryig to create sub folders under the folder structure which i currently have namely, shp, geo-ref images, grids and images and hyperlink. but my problem is i do not know what kind of data i will be having the near future. – gleeks Dec 31 '10 at 1:09
hence, i am now creating a naming convention and then have all files have metadata. read from here that it will be good to have a listing of keywords for these metadata, which can be manually sync monthly across the 4 regional offices. so it is kind of like "add as and when necessary", which i think is the best way forward for my case. but is it necessary for me to have a metadata server for this? if so, do i need to include a spatial server as well? – gleeks Dec 31 '10 at 1:16
i am not sure if it has to be open source, but pls advise as i am still very new to IT stuff and GIS too. *Sorry, not sure why i cant edit, hence, i have to add another comment box. – gleeks Dec 31 '10 at 1:23

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote accepted

ArcGIS 10 has a 'Metadata toolset' with auto sync

"metadata is automatically updated when anyone who has write access to the ArcGIS item views its metadata"

http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/An_overview_of_the_Metadata_toolset/00120000000r000000/

http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Synchronize_Metadata/001200000011000000/

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mapperz, my company is experiencing quite a bit of issue with v10 running on XP x64. hence, we are now in v9.3.1. are what you suggest applicable for v9.3.1? – gleeks Dec 31 '10 at 1:19

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