An overview of the Caching toolset

The Caching toolset creates and manages caches for faster display of map, image, and globe services. The caches consist of pregenerated images that the server can distribute to clients. Tools with Map Server in the name work with map and image services; tools with Globe Server in the name work with globe services.

Creating a cache requires the server to generate many map images and save them to disk. Depending on the area and scales covered, the caches can become very large, using many gigabytes of space. Some of the tools can take a long time to run, and you should review What is map caching for guidelines on how to plan your cache and anticipate the creation time.

Many of the tools in this toolset are especially appropriate for scripting. For example, Manage Map Server Cache Tiles can be run on a regular basis to update the tiles in a cache with the latest available data. See Automating cache creation and updates with geoprocessing to learn more.

Legacy:

The parameters of many of the tools in the Caching toolset have changed between versions 10 and 10.1. If you are using tools from this toolset in existing models or scripts, review the tool reference help carefully to understand how to migrate to 10.1.

When moving to 10.1 Service Pack 1, you must open and validate any models that use Export Map Server Cache or Import Map Server Cache because these tools have a new parameter. This process is described in Automating cache creation and updates with geoprocessing.

Tool	Description
Convert Map Server Cache Storage Format	Converts the storage of a map or image service cache between the exploded format and the compact format. The tool converts the format in place, meaning it does not make a copy of the existing format of the cache. Instead, it creates the new format of the cache in the same cache folder and deletes the old format.
Create Map Server Cache	Creates the tiling scheme and preparatory folders for a map or image service cache. After running this tool, use the Manage Map Server Cache Tiles tool to add tiles to the cache.
Delete Map Server Cache	Deletes an existing map or image service cache, including all associated files on disk.
Export Map Server Cache	Exports tiles from a map or an image service cache as a cache dataset or tile package to a folder on disk. The tiles can be imported into other caches, or they can be accessed from ArcGIS Desktop or mobile devices as a raster dataset, independent from their parent service.
Generate Map Server Cache Tiling Scheme	Generates an XML tiling scheme file that defines the scale levels, tile dimensions, and other properties for a map service cache. This tool is useful when creating a tiling scheme to use in multiple caches. You can load the tiling scheme file when you create a cache in ArcGIS Desktop or ArcGIS Server Manager, or you can run Create Map Server Cache and pass in the tiling scheme file as a parameter.
Import Map Server Cache	Imports tiles from a folder on disk into a map or an image service cache.
Manage Map Server Cache Scales	Updates the scale levels in an existing cached map or image service. Use this tool to add new scales or delete existing scales from a cache.
Manage Map Server Cache Status	Manages internal data kept by the server about the built tiles in a map or image service cache.
Manage Map Server Cache Tiles	Creates and updates tiles in an existing web tile layer cache. This tool is used to create new tiles, replace missing tiles, overwrite outdated tiles, and delete tiles.
Upgrade Map Server Cache Storage Format	Upgrades the compact cache storage format of a map or image service (created at 10.2.2 and earlier versions) to take advantage of performance improvements available at 10.3 and later versions.