Using ArcGIS Server 10 To Generate A Map Service Cache For Use In ArcGIS Server 9.3.1

ArcGIS Server 10 introduces some great enhancements when working with caches.

Cache generation is not only faster but there are a number of new tools to help you manage large caches which also makes it easier to move. Some of these tools were touched on at the ESRI Developer Summit 2010 and for those looking at some of the more advanced topics around caching you can have a watch of the technical session from the ESRI Developer Summit 2010. This can be found here: http://www.esri.com/events/…

With the introduction of these enhancements, I have been using ArcGIS Server 10 build our map service caches. Once your cache has been generated it will automatically be available to the map service it was generated from. Now what if you wanted to make use of this cache in ArcGIS Server 9.3.1? Well if you copy an ArcGIS Server 10 cache over and bind it to an ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 map service you will notice that it doesn’t pick up the cache.

So how do you get an ArcGIS Server 10 cache to work with ArcGIS Server 9.3.1?

Before you start the caching process and when you define the properties of your map service cache in ArcGIS Server 10, make sure the “Storage Format” is set to “Exploded”. Exploded is the traditional ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 method of caching. Once the cache has been generated, copy it over to your ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 server. Create the relevant service for the cache.

Now to get the map service to pick your newly generated cache, we have to make some changes the conf.xml. Open up the conf.xml in notepad and modify the following lines:

ArcGIS Server 10:

<cacheinfo xmlns:typens="http://www.esri.com/schemas/ArcGIS/10.0"
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:type="typens:CacheInfo">

ArcGIS Server 9.3.1

<cacheinfo xmlns:typens="http://www.esri.com/schemas/ArcGIS/9.3"
xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:type="typens:CacheInfo">

ArcGIS Server 10

<cachestorageinfo xsi:type="typens:CacheStorageInfo">
        <storageformat>esriMapCacheStorageModeExploded</storageformat>
        <packetsize>0</packetsize>
</cachestorageinfo>

ArcGIS Server 9.3.1:

None

A comparision between an ArcGIS Server 10 conf.xml and an ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 conf.xml can be found here: http://geo.geek.nz/wp-content/… Note that the origins are different but we do not have to worry about this.

Modifying the CacheInfo to ArcGIS/9.3 and removing the CacheStorageFormatInfo will allow ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 to read the conf.xml and access the cache. Once this file has been saved, restart the map service and will see that the cache has been picked up.

ArcGIS Server 10 caches can be used in ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 with a few minor changes. Now you can take advantage of some of the enhanced caching tools and still use the cache on your existing ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 servers.