ESRI Releases New GIS Portal Toolkit for ArcGIS

1 Oct, 2008

Free offering aims to simplify geographic data access and sharing.

ESRI, a geographic information system (GIS) software developer, has updated its GIS Portal Toolkit for ArcGIS, making it easier to share, discover, and access geographic data, the company reports. The free toolkit implements local, regional, national, and global spatial data infrastructure (SDI) portals and provides the capabilities needed to deploy a GIS portal for an organization's SDI.

The toolkit is now based on ArcGIS server technology and includes the following enhancements:

support for finalized Open Geospatial Consortium
specification standards
a REST-style interface for searching and supporting OpenSearch, GeoRSS, and KML
LDAP authentication support for improved security
configurable support for ISO 19139 metadata profiles
Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata and Dublin Core metadata
integrated clip-zip-ship function for data download
improved context-sensitive help and product documentation