ArcGIS, Definitions, Acronyms And Abbreviations

Well recently I have found myself writing up a few conceptual architecture documents along with some high and low-level architecture documents for clients wanting to make use of ArcGIS Server 9.2. This is actually been pretty cool. Even though it’s documentation I have really been enjoying the architecture side of things. Depending on the client and solution, architecting GIS applications can become pretty complex.

As part of our Software Development Lifecycle template we have a section in their which is Definitions, Acronyms, Abbreviations. This is basically a glossary that a reader can refer to find out what the meaning of a specific word is. This is crucial when you are working with other non GIS vendors who have no idea what ArcGIS Server 9.2 Basic Edition is for example. So what I have been using to fill these out?

Well I found that ESRI has this cool page on the ESRI Support Center called the GIS Dictionary. Even though I know most of the ESRI terminology, I need it in a written form quickly so I can just copy and paste it into my documents. The GIS Dictionary can be found here: http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.gisDictionary.gateway

The GIS Dictionary provides good short descriptions when you need them. What is ArcSDE?

“ArcSDE
An advanced spatial data server for managing geographic information in numerous relational database management systems (RDBMSs). ArcSDE is part of the ArcGIS platform, and is the data server between ArcGIS and relational databases. It is widely used to enable geographic information to be shared by many users across any network and to scale in size from personal, to workgroup, and enterprise use.”

The only problem is that it has not been fully updated to support all the ArcGIS 9.2 terminology yet . A good resource to have though!