Do you have to connect to SQL Server to use ArcGIS?
To publish ArcGIS Server web services that access the data in your Microsoft SQL Server database (whether or not the database contains a geodatabase), your ArcGIS Server site must connect to the database. To configure that connection, you need to do the following:
How to register a database with ArcGIS Server?
If operating system authentication is used, use a domain account for the ArcGIS Server account, add it as a login to the SQL Server instance, and map it to a user you create in the database. ArcGIS Server will use this account to connect to the database. The name of the database to which you want to connect.
What do you need to know about the ArcGIS Server?
Read permissions to the directories containing the database connection files that you’ll register with the ArcGIS Server site before publishing web services. If you’ll be using Windows authentication instead of database authentication, you must also grant the ArcGIS Server account write access.
Do you need a default name for ArcGIS?
However, to use SQL Server with ArcGIS, your user names must have corresponding default schema names. This applies to the geodatabase administrator as well as nonadministrative users who create data.
Can you create a geodatabase in SQL Server?
You can create a geodatabase in your existing SQL Server database and continue to store your nongeodatabase data alongside geodatabase data. You can view and publish both types of data in ArcMap, but be aware of the following: Geodatabase data can be edited in ArcMap but database data cannot.
Do you need to install SQL Server on ArcMap?
If you have ArcMap installed on a 32-bit operating system, run the 32-bit SQL Server client installation. If your ArcGIS client is installed on the same machine as SQL Server, you do not need to install the SQL Server client because the files that are needed to connect are installed with the database management system.