How to Stay Informed
A listserv, arcinfo@lists.oregonstate.edu, has
been set up to keep members of the OSU community who are using software
under the ESRI site license fully informed (that includes ArcGIS, ArcGIS Server, ArcSDE, the full range of products). It is also used to share
information about updates, scheduling of new orders, as well as general
GIS technical questions.
To send messages to the list, use the address:
For information on subscribing, etc., see the listserv documentation at lists.oregonstate.edu.
If ordering documentation and tutorials, you do NOT have to go through the Software Licensing Coordinator. You can have your own departmental purchasing agent write up a purchase order to be charged to your grant or departmental account, and then deal with ESRI directly. Your purchasing agent can call the ESRI Desktop Center at (800) 447-9778 x1153 and specify our customer # which is 220417. Our ESRI Site License sales representative is Anne Guzkowski (AGuzkowski@esri.com, 888-377-4575 ext. 1763).
The university site license agreement places certain responsibilities on a university. The agreement requires that the university name a single administrative contact (Dawn Wright) between the university and ESRI and designate up to three technical specialists (from the university) who support all on-campus software use. The university is encouraged to promote GIS to other university departments through seminars, software demonstrations, and training for university faculty.
Licensing
All licensing will be through the site license. An annual maintenance
fee costs $25,000 per year, regardless of the number of licenses of any of the
ESRI products we have here. For instance, in the past FSL paid a price
not that much cheaper than this for the licenses that they held before
the site license was obtained. The advantage of the site license is
that FSL is paying less for licenses than they did in the past, because
the cost is shared, and they, as well as everyone else, now has many
more licenses. The cost savings are SIGNIFICANT. This is covered in the
site license funding document.
ESRI software applications are licensed and protected differently, depending on the type of hardware and what is most appropriate for the user's local environment. The two types of protection used on ESRI software are hardware keys and a software license manager.
ArcCAD and ArcGIS for Windows operate on personal computers and are protected against unauthorized use by a hardware key. The hardware key is a pass-through device that connects to a PC's parallel or USB port (you can still connect another device, such as a printer or plotter, to the other end of the key). Under the site license there is a special low cost for additional hardware keys. This cost is per key. ArcCAD does not require a hardware key. We also have the option now of keyless licensing that does not require a hardware key.
Unix workstation ArcInfo, Windows ArcGIS, and Unix ArcView software are protected by a software keycode provided by ESRI during the software installation process. There are two types of licenses for Unix/Windows Arc software: floating licenses and node-locked licenses. A "floating" license is one where only one person at one terminal using one login at a time may use the license, with it NOT being restricted to any particular CPU. The number of seats are administered by the License Manager and are available to all nodes on the network. A license manager is included in the software to administer the distribution of licenses to requesting end users, using one login at a time. As an example, say you have 2 servers (say a Sun SPARC and a Sun Blade), and you want to have 6 floating licenses, and you also want the SPARC to act as a backup license manager. Then get 6 floating licenses for the SPARC 10 and 6 floating licenses for the Blade. When ordering these licenses you would specify the serial number, model, etc, for all machines that will be license servers.
Please note that Node-Locked licenses are not included in the state-wide site license agreement we have with ESRI.
A "node-locked" license means that the license is provided
in sets of three and that the software is locked to one specific CPU.
Terminals and terminal emulators are free to access the software on the
host platform but cannot remove it from the locked CPU.
The only previous advantage to
them was a price advantage: 3 for 1. But since we can now get floating
licenses anyway, there is no real advantage anymore. If you were going to
get a separate node-locked license because you anticipated your computer
being separated from the network at some point, you can now get floating
licenses for that machine and still separate it from the network,
assuming you have another set of floating licenses for a different server.
ESRI says: "Most site licenses do not use node locked licenses, since they
are limited in their use. Since there is no price advantage, there is
effectively no advantage to using a node locked license under the site
license."
Under the site license, additional keycodes may be purchased for a transaction fee. This fee is the same regardless of the number of keycodes ordered in the transaction.
ArcView for Windows, ArcView for Macintosh, and ArcCAD have no copy protection. These products may be copied onto the hard drive of any computer, as long as that computer belongs to the university and resides on the university campus.
HARDWARE SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
See wikis.esri.com/wiki/display/ag93bsr/ArcGIS+Desktop for ArcGIS 9.3 and
resources.arcgis.com/content/arcgisdesktop/10.0/system-requirements for ArcGIS 10.
Last updated: July 13, 2010