Comments on: Friday Open Discussion

By: Avery

Avery — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:16:34 +0000

The breakdown for AGS Enterprise that I was quoted by my ESRI Rep is $40k/computer limit 4 cores and $10K per additional core (aka more than one quad core processor per computer). Every additional computer that has AGS Enterprise on it is considered another license. Ouch.

No wonder the open source alternatives have been taking off.

By: Tim Maddle

Tim Maddle — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:38:09 +0000

Our use is for public-facing websites, so Workgroup is not an option. The agencies we colloborate are also looking to use it for public sites, so we’re all in the boat of requiring enterprise licenses. We currently use ArcIMS ArcMap services with acceptable, but not stellar performance. The idea of “upgrading” to a platform that offers worse performance or scalability does not excite me.

By: James Fee

James Fee — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:51:13 +0000

Well that is just it, while it can get expensive, you can roll out a $4k ArcGIS Server Standard Workgroup and support 10 users very well. If you’ve got hundreds of users using ArcGIS Server Enterprise (you don’t need to purchase Advanced unless you need the geoprocessing) that cost is very low.

So you can start out low and as you get bigger, the support will be there.

By: bob

bob — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:12:15 +0000

Tim,

even though your prices seem high, is it safe to assume that if you have 32 GIS users then the actual cost is only around $1,000 for each user?

How many users are you planning to support with your copy of AGS Enterprise?

By: Tim Maddle

Tim Maddle — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:18:01 +0000

mai,
Annual maintenance includes technical support and upgrades. You don’t have to pay, but then I assume you don’t get the tech support and upgrades. This comes with a “as far as I know” disclaimer.

Toodles and all,
I just checked my links and they appear to be broken because they were tied to a session.
Just go to gsaadvantage.gov and search on these product id’s one at a time:

“GIS1908″ for Basic Enterprise
“GIS1903″ for Standard Enterprise
“GIS1904″ for Advanced Enterprise

I just talked with someone with another agency in the area and he confirmed that he got the same 20K and 40K prices we did. The workgroup versions are significantly cheaper, but I assume most people reading this blog are users of or interested in the Enterprise version. If someone can confirm they are getting significantly cheaper prices, please email me at tmaddle@hotmail.com. I’m sure my organization would love to have some basis to negotiate a better price on future purchases. These prices are a big part of the issue I have with moving to AGS. How is a small organization supposed to create any level of scalability at those prices?

By: mai

mai — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 04:38:49 +0000

Wow, it looks like the previous quote of $40K might indeed have been on the low side!

I am not sure about maintenance fees. Is it that you have to pay for the product and then pay for yearly maintenance? Is there an option to not pay for maintenance? What will that deprive me of?

By: tooodles

tooodles — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:24:31 +0000

thanks James. Very useful information for me and everyone else. And, it puts to rest some of these wild prices that people banter about.

It also shows that ESRI prices, while expensive, are not totally out of whack. That is, if you can negotiate a little better price like you indicate, then you are in fact getting a pretty good deal that can serve a small to moderate sized organization.

By: Tim Maddle

Tim Maddle — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:30:34 +0000

These are GSA schedule prices.

AGS Basic Enterprise – 8K
https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/advgsa/advantage/catalog/product_detail.do?contractNumber=GS-35F-0321R&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&itemNumber=GIS1908

AGS Standard Enterprise – 16K
https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/advgsa/advantage/catalog/product_detail.do?contractNumber=GS-35F-0321R&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&itemNumber=GIS1907

AGS Advanced Enterprise – $32K
https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/advgsa/advantage/catalog/product_detail.do?contractNumber=GS-35F-0321R&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&itemNumber=GIS1900

Advanced is the version with the ArcEditor functionality. My organization isn’t on the GSA schedule, so our prices are higher. Our quote for Advanced was $40K with annual maintenance of 7.5K. Maintenance on Standard runs us 5K per year.

By: James Fee

James Fee — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:40:09 +0000

I said starting at $4k because different prices for different folks. I'm sure a good customer could get a better price, but for most you'll see in the $4k range for ArcGIS Server Standard Workgroup. If you want to read what is included with ArcGIS Server Standard Workgroup, just click here.

By: tooodles

tooodles — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:04:58 +0000

James,

can you be more specific about the $4K price?

1. Does this include all the ESRI extensions (spatial analyst, 3D analyst, etc.)?
2. Will it enable connection to Oracle, etc.?
3. All the ArcEditor functionality?
4. All the topology type operations like overlay, routing, etc.?

what do you mean by “starts”? Is $4K the price or isn’t it? Are there other things that get added to it?

I only ask because there are these $40K numbers thrown around by people, and I don’t think it is true. I would like to get a real sense for what is provided with $4K worth of ArcGIS Server Standard. Then, if people make these crazy $40K statements, we can point them to this thread and they’ll see everything they get.