This edition of the Denver Developer User Group was much better, and not just because I gave a breif chat about ArcDeveloper.net & ArcUnit!
Things started off with a quick round of introductions – name, affiliation, what you are doing with ArcGIS, and I was quite suprised at how many groups were seriously looking at switching a lot of GIS functionality over to ArcGIS Server. Very cool! The ESRI Denver guys, (Chris, Tom, and Jeremiah) did a session on setting up and installing ArcGIS server. Now this seems like a somewhat dull topic until you actually try to install it. Then you realize that, yes, you do need to think about what’s going on more than any other ESRI product. They even had a common “gotcha” occur. Tom (running the demo) had added his domain account to the local “ArcGIS Server Admin” group, and then tried to connect to ArcGIS Server via Catalog, and it threw an error stating he did not have permission to access the resource. After checking that the service was running, someone in the audience reminded him that he needed to log out and log in before his account would “know” about the group change. This is exactly the sort of thing that can make installing and configuring AGS a confusing process. Unless you are installing on a development box, I’d highly suggest having a little Active Directory / Windows managment under your belt, or involve a system admin. After than, Bryan Dickerson of Woolpert gave a review of a number of ArcGIS Server projects that they have done. Bryan is a system & software architect, so it was a good – non-marketing – talk about how all the parts work together. He concentrated a fair bit on how to use the right software in the right place – when to use ArcGIS Server vs ArcIMS, and how to blend them. I believe his presentation, along with my few slides, and Tom/Jeremiah’s Installing ArcGIS Server slide decks will be on the ESRI Denver site in the next day or so. Also of note – if you’re in the Denver area, and want to present at one of these, Chris Longo in the Denver office is the man to talk to.
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