ArcIMS
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ArcIMS (standing for Arc Internet Map Server) is a Web Map Server produced by ESRI. It is a GIS that is designed to serve maps across the Internet. Sometimes these maps are just static images allowing simple panning and zooming, whilst others are more complex pages. Examples of interactive maps served with ArcIMS include maps with layers that can be turned on and off, or with features containing attributes that can be queried. A visitor to a site driven by ArcIMS needs nothing more than a web browser: the GIS and database are maintained on the server side.
ESRI's products are not the only Internet map services, with many other companies producing their own software to perform the same function. There are also Open Source alternatives to ArcIMS.
The core of ArcIMS is a spatial server where most of the map related services are processed. On the server side, ArcIMS connector sits on top of web server and ArcIMS component and Application server works behind the scene. On the client side, the viewers can be thin client, custom clients or ESRI desktop application like ArcMap, ArcExplorer, or ArcPad.
ArcIMS uses ESRI's ArcXML to receive and respond to requests from the client. The data behind ArcIMS is usually stored in Shapefile format (an open specification) or an ArcSDE RDBMS database.
[edit] External links
[edit] Example ArcIMS Internet Map Sites
Also check out ArcXML. It is an enabling technology to work with ArcIMS. Good introduction to ArcXML link - http://gislounge.com/features/aa012402a.shtml
