ArcIMS (standing for Arc Internet Map Server) is a Web Map Server produced by

Esri Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., doing business as Esri (), is an American Multinational corporation, multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company headquartered in Redlands, California. It is best known for ...

accessible through a

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

. It is a

GIS A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...

that is designed to serve maps across the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. Sometimes these maps are just static images allowing simple panning and zooming, while 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.

Implementation

The core of ArcIMS consists of a spatial server which processes most of the map-related services. On the server side, ArcIMS connector sits on top of a

web server A web server is computer software and underlying Computer hardware, hardware that accepts requests via Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, co ...

and ArcIMS component and Application server works behind the scenes. On the client side, the viewers can be thin clients, custom clients or

desktop applications such as

ArcMap ArcMap is the former main component of Esri's ArcGIS suite of geospatial processing programs. Used primarily to view, edit, create, and analyze geospatial data. ArcMap allows the user to explore data within a data set, symbolize features accordi ...

, 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 The shapefile format is a geospatial vector data format for geographic information system (GIS) software. It is developed and regulated by Esri as a mostly open specification for data interoperability among Esri and other GIS software product ...

format (an

open specification An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a common prerequisite that open standards use an open license that provides for extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in their development due to ...

) or in an

ArcSDE ArcSDE (Arc Spatial Database Engine) is a server-software sub-system (produced and marketed by Esri) that aims to enable the usage of relational database management systems for spatial data. The spatial data may then be used as part of a geodat ...

RDBMS A relational database (RDB) is a database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a type of database management system that stores data in a structured forma ...

database. The Data Delivery Extension (DDE), an extension to the ArcIMS product, delivers data to users in a data format and coordinate system of their own choosing, in order to have access to data in a format compatible with their local GIS applications. Esri no longer supports ArcIMS, having replaced its functionality with ArcGIS for Server in 2010 and with ArcGIS Online (AGOL).

Version history

* 2000 June – ArcIMS 3.0 released * 2001 May – ArcIMS 3.1 released * 2002 April – ArcIMS 4.0 released * 2003 February – ArcIMS 4.0.1 released * 2004 May – ArcIMS 9.0 released * 2005 May – ArcIMS 9.1 released * 2006 November – ArcIMS 9.2 released * 2008 June – ArcIMS 9.3 released * 2009 April – ArcIMS 9.3.1 released * 2010 June – ArcIMS 10.0 released

External links

Esri ArcIMS page

Introduction to ArcXML

Footnotes

{{Esri Software Esri software Web Map Services