Geographic information systems (GIS) play a role in the process of solving critical business problems in industries such as government, utilities, retail, banking, insurance, oil and gas, transportation, and health. Gathering and summarizing information about the geographic location and the movement of core business elements is essential to the operation of today's enterprises. These elements could include products, assets, or services within a commercial or government entity. Examples such as supply chain management, land management, field service delivery, and emergency response all demonstrate the importance of location information.

This IBM® Redpaper describes key components of an enterprise GIS. We focus on the interface between ESRI ArcGIS and IBM WebSphere® Application Server, where WebSphere Portal Server is deployed. We explore the integration of ArcGIS Server 9.1 and 9.2 within the WebSphere 6.0 framework. The major subsystems are described and programming examples are provided, using the Java™ 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE™ ) application programming language.