Mapserver | ESRI Rest map service | MapServer

Question

Why do examples like https://openlayers.org/en/latest/examples/arcgis-tiled.html refer to ArcGIS's Map Service as MapServer? I don't believe ESRI documentation actually uses the term Mapserver or MapServer so I believe it is a disservice to OSGeo MapServer to propagate this usage.

Answer 1

I don't believe ESRI documentation actually uses the term Mapserver or MapServer

Perhaps not now, but historically it did (ArcGIS 9.3):

http://resources.esri.com/help/9.3/arcgisserver/adf/java/help/doc/ffcb723b-2356-4afd-8a2c-a8a5c472e9eb.htm#MapServerObject

MapServer can be configured as pooled or non-pooled, depending on the requirements of the application. An example of an application that requires a non-pooled MapServer is an application that changes the map (for example adds or removes layers) or one that manages a geodatabase edit session across multiple requests.

...

and:

http://resources.esri.com/help/9.3/arcgisserver/adf/java/help/doc/9e54b952-9c9c-47d0-b2e8-71a97de3e1d1.htm

MapServer includes the following out-of-the-box extensions to the base server object:

UMN MapServer has been around since 1994

ref: https://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/wiki/MapServerHistory

and that certainly pre-dates ArcGIS 9.3 (released June 26, 2008), but I'm not sure how far back it was when ESRI started using the term. MapObjects I think was around in 1998.

So it is perhaps unfortunate that ESRI came up with the same phrase for providing a map from a service as UMN, and they certainly did use it in the past; whether they should continue to use it is, I guess, a matter of opinion.

Answer 2

Welcome to SO!

This is just proper English vocabulary. I.E., you go to a restaurant for food service, thus is provided by a server (waiter/waitress).

However, it's not necessary to concatenate the words "MapServer"... "Map server" would do fine because it's just technical jargon.

But to ultimately answer your question ESRI usually has the word "MapServer" built into their URLs for accessing their map services. So it's not too surprising that they're often interchangeable.