If you are in a production environment, there are factors that should be considered before publishing GIS services. While your entire library of data could be published as GIS services, it does not mean that you should do this. Publishing services is an expensive process, it tends to consume a lot of resources and server power and has to be maintained regularly. Therefore, it is recommended that you plan the services you are going to author. This chapter will cover two main topics: planning and designing.

The planning stage consists of two steps: The first step is acquiring and analyzing the requirements. This answers questions such as what is it that you want to accomplish? Why do you chose to publish services as your solution? Can your problem be solved more efficiently with a direct connection to the geodatabase? The second step involves the decision of what parts of your geodatabase should be exposed as GIS services. This should be based...