Oregon State Site License Home

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:

arcinfo@lists.oregonstate.edu

For information on subscribing, etc., see the listserv documentation at lists.oregonstate.edu.

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Ordering Documentation, Prices for Hardware Keys & Extra Copies of CDs, General Product Info.

[ ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 Help Online]
[ GIS Quick Reference Card ]

ArcGIS 9.3 Desktop Quick Reference Panels:
[ 1-Map Nav | 2-Table of Contents | 3-Tables | 4-Tables/Editing | 5-Sketch Tool | 6-Topology Error Inspector | 7-Tips & Timesavers ]

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).

Order Documentation for ArcGIS and Other Products Online

University Responsibilities Under the Site License

Our university site license agreement is available ONLY to OSU faculty, staff, and students, and is intended ONLY for academic research or instructional use on UNIVERSITY-OWNED machines (not personal machines).

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.

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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.

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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.

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Last updated: July 13, 2010

Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University
Corvallis OR 97331-5506
Phone (541) 737-1201, Fax (541) 737-1200