Enterprise System Design Associate

Overview
Qualifications
Skills Measured
Training Resources

Esri Certified Enterprise System Design Associates understand concepts supporting enterprise systems integration, system performance, scalability, capacity planning, and information product design and have skills to support project implementation.

This certification is for system design professionals who have at least 5- 7 years experience with enterprise and solution architecture and a minimum of 18-24 months experience working with Esri technology.

Sample questions [PDF - 57 KB]

Exam price: $225 USD
Exam time limit: 2 hours and 30 minutes
Number of questions: 95
Certification code: ESDA10

A qualified candidate for the Enterprise System Design Associate Certification is able to design simple to medium complexity solutions/systems and may be a team contributor on more complex enterprise solutions. They are familiar with GIS and Esri terminology, architecture, concepts and technology and their impact on design.

A qualified candidate should be able to:

Understand performance and scalability
Make appropriate design choices for COTS and non-customized projects

For departmental and COTS projects, a qualified candidate should be able to:

Map the business requirements to the technology
Design the conceptual architecture
Design the business architecture
Design the application architecture
Design the data architecture
Design security
Design integration and interoperability
Design the deployment architecture
Determine capacity planning and performance requirements
Understand and provide proper documentation
Build a phase/migration plan

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ArcGIS product knowledge

Explain fundamental geodatabase concepts such as replication, versioning, ArcSDE-supported spatial data types, database joins, normalization, etc.
Compare and contrast the different caching options
Describe the functional capabilities of each service type
Describe the extended capabilities of extension service types
Discuss the importance of selecting the appropriate service output image format for ArcGIS Server Map Services
Identify the Web API available from Esri
Describe the component architecture for ArcGIS Server

Performance and scalability

Explain the advantages and disadvantages of using the optimized map documents
Identify the impacts of caching on performance and scalability
Identify the map document authoring/cartography elements that impact performance and scalability
Describe the impact of hardware and network resources on performance and scalability

Design considerations

Identify the methods for monitoring critical system metrics, ArcGIS server metrics, database metrics, and Web application server metrics
Identify operations that will require ArcGIS downtime
Describe appropriate use and deployment scenarios for server directories

Identify the business goals, outputs, and processes

Identify business goals, outputs, and processes where ArcGIS can assist businesses
Differentiate high value and low value business processes and the potential for automation

Conduct a user needs assessment and define the use cases

Identify key components of the current state architecture
Explain what information should be gathered that impacts migrating from the current state to a target state system

Gather non-functional requirements and service level requirements

Explain how non-functional requirements will impact the solution

Map the business requirements to the technology

Determine which COTS ArcGIS products can be leveraged in the solution
Determine which requirements will need a custom coded solution
Determine which components of the current state can be applied to the target solution and which ones need to be replaced

Design the conceptual architecture

Identify the conceptual diagrams that appropriately communicate the current state of operations that employ ArcGIS components within the departmental configuration
Identify the conceptual diagram that appropriately represents the full scope of a target state of departmental operations that employ ArcGIS components

Design the business architecture

Determine the business organization required to support a target solution

Design the application architecture

Match user workflows to the appropriate Esri ArcGIS software architecture patterns
Given user needs, functional and non-functional requirements, conceptual architecture, and the phase plan, determine the application components of the solution.
Determine the appropriate service architecture
Determine the appropriate ArcGIS Server service deployment configuration parameters

Design the data architecture

Determine which information can be dynamic and what should be in a data cache
Select appropriate data sources/formats for a given data design
Identify the appropriate content methods to use in a given design

Design security

Given user needs, functional and non-functional requirements, conceptual architecture, and the phase plan, determine the appropriate way to secure ArcGIS Server application and services
Given user needs, functional and non-functional requirements, conceptual architecture, and the phase plan, determine the appropriate way to secure ArcGIS Mobile services
Given user needs, functional and non-functional requirements, conceptual architecture, and the phase plan, determine the appropriate way to secure ArcGIS Server across the firewall

Design licensing

Given a set of hardware and product selections for a Desktop solution, determine the licensing requirements

Design integration and interoperability

Explain how ArcGIS Server services support third party clients
Determine if an ArcGIS solution requires integration with other enterprise business systems
Determine the appropriate method for extracting, transforming and loading (ETL) data
Determine how to integrate with other business systems

Design the deployment architecture

Determine appropriate ArcGIS server deployment patterns and configuration options
Determine the appropriate ArcGIS Desktop deployment patterns and configuration options for a given set of constraints

Capacity planning and performance

Identify key inputs to capacity planning
Identify factors that affect response time
Given user requirements, functional and non-functional requirements, conceptual architecture, phase plan and a benchmarked solution, generate hardware requirements based on user loads

Documentation

Interpret the meaning of the diagram and its components of a given Esri design document
Determine the appropriate artifacts for solution design of a given design phase

Build phase/migration plan

Discuss the benefits and risks of a given upgrade sequence
Explain the importance of development, testing, staging environments for solution validation, testing and change management

Solutions development

Given user needs, functional and non-functional requirements, conceptual architecture, and phase plan, explain how risks can be mitigated

The following training resources are available to help you prepare for your exam, but they are not required. Keep in mind, completing recommended training courses does not guarantee that you will achieve the requirements for a specific Esri Technical Certification.

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Instructor-Led

Building Geodatabases (10.0)
ArcGIS Desktop II: Tools and Functionality (10.0)
Data Management in the Multiuser Geodatabase (10.0)
Introduction to the Multiuser Geodatabase (10.0)
Introduction to ArcGIS Server (10.0)
Managing Imagery Using ArcGIS (10.0)
System Architecture Design for GIS
ArcGIS Server: Web Administration Using the Microsoft .NET Framework (10.0)

Training Seminars

Managing Imagery with ArcGIS 10

Search the ArcGIS Resource Center for additional materials.

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