ArcGIS and Databases

Geographic Information System (GIS) is a collection of hardware, software, and geographic data that is used to create models that associate attribute data with specific aspects of physical spaces. ArcSDE and ArcGIS servers are the components of GIS which will help connect to different Database Management Systems (DBMS) and present data on the web. Choosing a correct backend database for an enterprise GIS includes consideration of cost, efficiency, scalability, security, and replication. These considerations make it difficult for an organization to decide which backend database to use. The purpose of this thesis was to analyze PostgreSQL, SQL Server, and Oracle with ArcGIS in order to determine the best backend database for a specific class of organizations. The data used for this research was the whole map information for the State of New Mexico. Similar data was used for all the databases to identify results. The efficiency was measured in terms of response time.