ESRI ArcGIS Server licensing – Be ready to get out your checkbook
November 18, 2006 107 Comments
Dave Bouwman points out something that will probably make every ESRI Server developer cringe.
If you want to design a system the way you have it running today – you’re looking a 3 times the base pricing for server – this will get you ArcSDE running as a service on a separate DBMS (assuming 2 sockets) and the web ADF running on it’s own server (also 2 sockets).
I know we set up our installations this way and I’m sure most of you do to. The extra cost for SDE on a second server didn’t surprise me (I’m a little disappointed, but I guess it makes sense). The web ADF is a totally different story.
At this point it is very safe to say that ESRI has developed the most expensive web ADF in the history of the internet. I’d heard rumors about this, but I kept laughing them off because it just didn’t make any sense. We better not trash that old .NET 1.1 website framework we developed just yet.
I’m just at a loss for words right now.
About James Fee
OK James, you are my hero. That picture just sums this up perfectly. I wasn’t on the beta test, but I did have it demo’d for me. It isn’t worth the price ESRI expects. My jaw is still on the floor after talking to my ESRI sales rep.
How much (more or less) are we talking about??
So what would be the total price for this setup now ? Sorry Im a bit ESRI ignorant, as I am not currently using it (yeah you guessed it … Manifold!)
If the rumors are correct, anywhere from $30,000 with the AGS Basic to $120,000 for Advanced.
Do you thing is there, nowdays, a real and competitive open source alternative to ESRI products?
How can I bring a website proposal to small towns that can’t even pay their maintenance that costs well into the 5 figures.
I can’t so I guess it is time to look at MapGuide open source. The demo has a nice AJAX interface so it should look as good as a basic ESRI web ADF site.
Of course it depends what you are doing – in somce cases the $$ may be well worth it. There are some schools of thought which say that you should price your product higher – specifically to get fewer, but more committed customers. This way you have less support calls, and a smaller usage foot print to satisfy. Not sure if this is their plan, but I don’t think this is a good way to broaden their client base.
As for open source comptition with ESRI, for a simple web mapping solution, MapServer + Tile Cache + Open Layers is going to get you pretty close. MapServer can read ArcSDE data (not sure about direct connect though – anyone?), so it’s not like you need to give up ArcMap as a data managment and cartography tool. Sure, the map publishing story is a little chunkier than with Server, but if you are not publishing 50 maps a week, it’s doable.
As for small counties – that’s what the workgroup is aimed at. Everything on one box, running a free DBMS. I think this is a really great model, but the cost to scale is large, and you still have to run the ADF on the main server, which has security implications.
It would be really nice to hear an official story from ESRI on this – maybe clear up any misconcepions. Particularly how they suggest you deal with firewalls and corporate security.
Dave
Also – ArcGIS Server Basic is really just ArcSDE with the geodatabase replication components. No mapserver type of thing.
This is published on the functionality matrix: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcgisserver/about/functionality-matrix.pdf
Dave
Dave,
forgive my ignorance, but I looked over the funcationality matrix, and thought the following:
- ArcGIS Server does a lot!
so, if it is $120,000 for the full blown deal, but allows for unlimited connections thats not a bad deal. If I have 100 users, thats just $1,200 per person.
do I have this correct?
even if I’m a smaller user with 10 users, and spend $30,000, thats $3,000 per user. So, $3,000 is cheap for everything that ArcGIS Server has to offer – it is cheaper than ArcGIS and ArcIMS.
do I have this correct? maybe I’m 0 for 2.
Boy if I could only get my clients to think tha that.
You are technically correct in your thinking. Of course it is just the server licensing cost and doesn’t include the hardware required or the programming needed for you to get that functionality.
Unlimted users on ArcGIS Server? I haven’t done any load tests with 9.2 yet as I don’t have it, but 9.1 was a pig. You’d need SERVERS to get unlimited support. I’ve always thought that is why ESRI doesn’t offer up a demo on their website. Not even ESRI could afford the hardware required for a quick AGS demo.
I’m not a ArcGIS Server user. Does this cost apply to ArcIMS users too? Our ArcIMS Server is not on our web server and it probably can never be.
Dave,
That’s a negative on direct connect for SDE for MapServer. If you were using SDO as your storage format, you could connect directly to Oracle with MapServer’s Oracle driver, however. You might be able to do the same thing against a MS SQL SDE, but I haven’t experimented with that (I use Oracle with my SDE setup, and connect directly against it for MapServer apps).
MapServer also supports FastCGI, which is a big win for something like Oracle and SDE, where connection initiation overhead is really big. MS4W doesn’t currently support it, but I hope to do something about that in a future release.
Howard
Sal,
It may be cheaper than desktop for some scenarios, but a web based vector editing environment is never going to be as responsive as a desktop application. So – it really depends on your use case. For example – the Smart Client stuff that comes with Advanced is really really cool – and you get (apparently) 50 client run-time licenses with the Advanced version. So that’s pretty nice.
I’m not saying that Server as a whole is not a good thing – just that having to pay full price for the ADF sockets seems a little crazy to me. Especially if I’m not doing all kinds of sexy editing.
Also – and not to muddy up the waters anymore than they are – I’ve heard that they will “grandfather” in existing applications. So talk to your rep and if you can show an ArcIMS app that is running with a web site not local to the server, you may be in luck.
Dave
having to pay for the ADF could possibly be the single worst decision I’ve heard about AGS.
get ready for a lot of underpowered AGS sites…
OK, now I feel really dumb. I was under the impression that AGS gave you everything, including the ability to “easily” develop your own applications. The ESRI rep did this self-depricating line like “if I can do it, then anyone can do it”.
But, now from reading this, it sounds like AGS is some kind of object model that has to be programmed, rather than a GUI application. Or, is it both.
If it is in fact an object model, then why not just use ArcObjects? How is ArcObjects with multiple licenses any different than AGS?
If I had 30 users, what would the cost be?
“OK, now I feel really dumb. I was under the impression that AGS gave you everything, including the ability to “easily†develop your own applications. The ESRI rep did this self-depricating line like “if I can do it, then anyone can do itâ€.”
I almost feel like you are baiting here. Of course the ESRI rep would say that. Technically they might be right because there are wizards that create websites, but given the functionality you are describing (replacing ArcView), there is no way a wizard could do that.
my only point about the ESRI rep was they he made it seem that the tools were there to just drop in.
my apologies if it seemed like baiting. that was not my intention. It seemed to me that AGS looked almost like having a floating toolbox that looks like ArcToolbox there waiting for you. And, I got the impression that you could choose what tools you want to make available to the user.
I asked the question because Anon seemed to make the point that it required more coding, and was more like an object model, rather that a GUI toolbox. But, I was under the impression it was a GUI.
Maybe this will clarify things: say I have a bunch of users out there and I want them to be able to clip the boundaries of the parcels to different zoning polygons, and zoom in and out, and identify polygons. I thought AGS would allow me in the setup to sort of “slide” the Clip tool, zoom in, zoom out, and identify tools into my new GUI that I’m creating for the users.
If thats what it does, then it is truly a killer app, and worth the money when you consider what it would normally cost to write ArcObjects functions to do it.
Sal,
You are correct – when you setup a “site” via AGS, you can pick and choose the tools. But the thing to keep in mind is that they have not bundled up all the ArcMap tools and pushed them into a browser. So, common stuff like Pan/Zoom/Identify are there, as are versioned, node based edititing tools. But you’ll have to roll your own analysis functions.
Granted, they’ve made the creation of simple custom queries easier, as with most things – making it work with real data, in a real use-case, for real users, is more complex. And this tends to require customization.
In my opinion, while the cost-benefit analysis store looks good, bigger thing is usability – while it’s true that you CAN do node based editing in your browser, how usable is it? I honestly don’t see experienced GIS users being OK with switching from ArcMap to a web app.
ESRI has done some very cool stuff with the ADF, but they are still using javascript. While there are some amazing things going on, performance wise, it’s still a long shot from ArcMap.
Anyhow – marketing is marketing – just make sure you give it a full test to make sure you’re getting what you thing you are getting. And make sure you’ve got some good coders or a good consultant if you want to customize it – cuz it’s way more complex than VBA in ArcMap.
Dave
So does this apply to ArcIMS? Dave you say grandfathered, but I guess that means new deployments would require the same payments as ArcGIS Server (though at a lower cost).
Part of me frankly can’t believe this at all. I can’t figure out the logic at all.
Jeremy,
Call your ESRI rep. I was trying to get a straight answer on ArcIMS, and if I recall, the ADF is the ADF is the ADF, and you have to license it at whatever level the back end server is running.
Again – contact ESRI to get the final word on this and the “grandfathering”. If you think this whole thing is lame, tell them so. I did.
As for the logic – you got me there. All I really want is the ability to create an ASP.NET based web site, and deploy the controls onto a web server w/o dumping $XX,XXX to do so. All the other services which have been wrapped into the ADF are great, and can live on the same server at the SOM/SOC as far as I care. Just let me push the web controls to web servers. And I think that most other developers would be cool with that as well. I’ve talked to many many people at ESRI about this, and the story to date has been that there is no separate license free run-time like at 9.1.
Dave
ouch! VBA is actually pretty easy. It was the ArcObject object model that was a nightmare! It took me about a year to start to get functional, AND, I actually had alot of Avenue programming experience!
But, thanks Dave for your comments. Your caveat was appreciated too, about rolling your own application. Let me get this straight in my mind, sorry for taking up so much of your time – I’m not lazy, I just don’t have the money to test things out now (try before buy, right?):
- suppose I want to create an abutters notification where you type in a parcel ID, and then AGS goes out and gets all the abutting parcels, and reports back their address, name, etc., and maybe even zooms to the area.
My guess is that should be able to be accomplished by sliding some kind of select-by-feature tool into my GUI. Now, granted, maybe the zoom thingy has to get programmed alittle, but I’m sure I could figure that out.
As another example:
- suppose I want to know the total assessment value for all properties that are inside the A floodzone. Again, thats just a simple find all the parcels inside the floodzone. So, I should be able to slide some kind of widget into my GUI to automate this for the user, right? Then, I would suppose there is some way to code the Total Assessed Value.
does this make sense as a user scenario? Also, does it fall into your example of needing to code it?
Maybe a good thread would be something like “what are people able to do with AGS?” It would be great to hear how it can be used, and how worthwhile it is.
Suppose I want to publish a map service on the web. No analysis tools and little to no customization. From what I understand the map publishing service of AGS creates an ASP.NET project in the background. Assuming I do nothing but cosmetic touchups to the web application, would this need an expensive license of the ADF? Or would a purchase of a single AGS Standard license be sufficient?
Sal,
Now that we have taken over the comments on this posting…
What you are talking about are very good use-cases for ArcGIS Server – focused, custom applications for non-GIS “expert” users. As for how much programming is required – that’s where you’ll need to experiment. You may be able to acheive the “functionality” you want with out of the box tools (although exporting a formatted list of addresses is likely going to require some ASP.NET action).
The real question is – will the out of the box tools really work for the users? Now, I’m likely biased since I’m a consultant, and I tend to believe a custom designed solution will be much more usable.
As for try-before you buy – this is where EDN is awesome – $1500 a year, and you can play with all of it. And have a dev environment where you can built and test functionality before rolling it to the production systems.
Anyhow – if people want to talk about AGS in more detail, let’s move this thread over to the forums @ ArcDeveloper.net, and leave this to be comments on the actual posting.
Dave
caseahr – If you just want to do that, Standard will be enough. Of course you’d have to run that website on the same server as AGS or you’d have to pay double.
UNBELIEVEABLE – How to they expect us to use this? I’m downloading MapGuide right now. The whole grandfather thing is so subjective that if they treat us this way, why should I bother?
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I think there is a lot of over reacting going on here. $120k? no way….not for any version. And the comment made “If you want to design a system the way you have it running today…” Who says you want to design a 9.2 system the way it is running today? 9.2 is such a major overhaul the design is bound to change, and for the better. I see less distribution and a more linear server architecture. The server requirements should actually go down.
Less distribution is better?
What planet did you just jump off?
If I have to run my webserver/sde/database/arcgisserver all on the same server, I can’t imagine the hardware requirements.
I’d have to agree – while it’s “nice” to have your entire system on a single box, that’s pretty counter to most enterprise architectures. Heck -there are some really fast boxed out there these days, and maybe it will actually carry the load – we’ll see when someone actually has a live demo up and running (hint hint ESRI!)
While this thread has turned into a general ArcGIS Server beat-down, my original point is related to the web ADF components that are typically deployed in a web site. If all the spatially enabled functionality “must” exist and run on the single central server, then integration with existing sites becomes difficult.
Anyhow – I still think it’s a very cool product, but that the ADF licensing stinks.
Thanks, Jeremy. Perhaps I still don’t get everything about what Dave said. However, it seems to me, you could still configure ArcSDE and ArcGIS Server 9.2 on one box and have the DBMS on a separate box and still just shell out the tolerable (kinda) single chunk of money for AGS Std/Ent with the ADF included. Am I missing something?
Kind of on but probably a little off-topic:
I just got a 9.2 box delivered with AG Desktop and AV updates but no server products. I have SDE and IMS – should I see a media delivery with 9.2 updates for sever products?
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We have our 9.2 Desktop, but no SDE or IMS. I guess that will arrive later.
This is all very confusing. Does this mean that I won’t be licensed to deploy my ArcIMS site anymore? I guess I could stay with the HTML viewer, but I was hoping that our city could move toward some Web 2.0 goodness.
I better call my ESRI rep.
You will be able to deploy your ArcIMS site after the change in licensing. I was told by one ESRI rep that it will be like AV 3.2 – still out there but no further development.
I thought everything was shipping but I guess not:
Dan,
The IMS & SDE updates have not started shipping yet.
Thank you
ESRI Customer Service
888-377-4575 ext 1-1-2215
fax # 909-793-4801
OK so I can use the new Web ADF with ArcIMS and deploy as I see fit? That is quite a relief!
Dan,
Are you saying ESRI is shelfing ArcIMS? I had not heard anyone cop up to that yet!
I had also asked on the ArcIMS ADF, and got the answer that there is only one ADF, and it needs to be licensed.
If they are changing their story for ArcIMS, that would be great!
Dave
I heard the AV 3.2 reference from both a Rep and a business parter that specializes in web apps – so I didn’t hear anything about the official roadmap, but hearing the 3.2 reference from both was a real coincidence!
Allow me to post a trackback on James’ behalf. This was the gossip on ArcIMS 9.2 back in August.
http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2006/08/16/but-what-about-arcims/trackback/
As far as the ADF goes, I’m still incredulous. Just based on what I think would logically happen, it seems to me that all AGS purchases will receive one ADF license (included in the price) which needs to be installed on the same box as ArcGIS Server. A separate licensing fee makes sense if you want ANOTHER ADF license, but is it really the price of a whole other AGS license? That doesn’t seem right.
That’s apparently the deal. Full price, for all sockets in the web server, at the same level as the SOM/SOC’s behind the scenes.
Never did get a solid answer for ArcIMS though.
James, have you heard anything from ESRI yet on this? Have they addressed this issue yet? I’ve seen nothing on the support site.
James, thanks for the Blog.
This may not be the best place to pose these questions, but your post and subsequent comments got me thinking.
I’ve been an ESRI user for a number of years and have implemented successful systems based in ArcSDE and ArcIMS.
While I admire the elegance of the Geodatabase and the functionality offered in 9.2 with replication etc, I’m yet to be sold on AGS.
I would ideally like to have the abilty to take ‘best of breed’ applications and plug them together to deliver a service. These ‘best of breed’ apps may not necessarily be ESRI apps. The work done by OGC, ISO TC 211, as well as by a number of vendors and Open Source projects is giving me hope that this may be possible sooner rather than later.
I suspect that once we commit to the AGS platform and start developing services and applications, unless we are careful in our strategy, it may be rather difficult to change platform for a key ‘best of breed’ component in the future.
One of my areas of concern relates to the underlying development environment used to develop ArcObjects (and I believe AGS). Perhaps someone more knowledgable can shed some light on this.
As I currently understand it, ArcObjects has been developed using Microsoft’s COM object model. This is an platform that Microsoft has abondoned in favour of .NET.
I also understand that ESRI has developed a Java Framework that will allow developers to work with a (subset?) of ArcObjects functionality. Being a fan of Unix/Linux type environments, this is a positive move.
Can anyone shed some light on the following issues:
- What is the future of ArcObjects with regards to COM and .NET?
- Has the Java Framework for ArcObjects been developed from scratch, leading to two distinct source code libraries to be maintained, or is ESRI using COM/Java bridging technologies?
I personally think that the move to bundle ArcSDE as a component of AGS is a cynical move to try and get me to commit to AGS. While I like the functionality offered by ArcSDE, I’m yet to be convinced by AGS as a future direction, particularly as we’re operating with Unix servers.
I also find the costs proposed for AGS to be exhorbitant.
On a positive note, we have had some early wins serving WFS out of Geoserver. Perhaps we’ll need to do more work with OS tools.
Bruce
As far as I know ArcObjects will continue to be the “premier” development environment for ArcGIS. COM, .NET or Java; it doesn’t matter. ArcObjects is the down and dirty development environment.
I’m sure some Java dev can come in here, but I’ve heard that ESRI has had some serious issues getting the Java stuff up to where the .NET/COM is. From what I remember reading, it is separate and not some simple COM wrapper (actually I might not have that right, but I think you get what I’m talking about). This is why it has had problems, that it is not shared. I saw that Steve left the ESRI Java team right before 9.2 went pre-release so I’m sure he might have some insights into what happened.
I left this off, but COM is going nowhere. COM is “safe” for years to come. I guess when Microsoft starts programming their applications in .NET, maybe we’ll see some movement away from COM, but I just don’t see that happening in my lifetime.
Infran, I’ve talked to my local ESRI rep on this. I obviously can’t quote you any prices I’ve heard, but I’m sure it is similar to whatever your rep would say.
Bruce,
ArcObjects is still COM. .NET support is achieved through COM interop. As for Java, ESRI is using bridging technologies. They use J/Integra to enable COM and Java to interoperate and, on non-Windows platforms, they use MainWin to enable COM to run. In your Linux scenario, you’ve got both MainWin and J/Integra in between ArcObjects and your Java code.
I supported an AGS 9.1 project with Java and Linux and the performance was not good. I have not checked to see if this situation has improved at 9.2.
I’ve also had good luck with GeoServer lately. I used the ArcSDE plug-in to serve my ArcSDE data out via WFS. It validated nicely using Gaia. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten though.
Actually James I was wondering if they have talked to you about this blog post.
Infran, I actually have not talked to anyone at ESRI about a blog post in quite some time (over 6 months). I don’t really try and get information from them for publication on this blog because they don’t work that way. I work through my ESRI rep and Business Partner rep, but of course I can’t share specific information about pricing.
Are you kidding me? ESRI doesn’t interact with you at all about this blog? I thought I read somewhere they participated in this discussion here.
What can I say. There are a couple ESRI employee posts, but generally this is just a user blog.
I’ve had no problem accessing ESRI via traditional means and getting quick answers.
Still I can’t believe at this point in time ESRI is not taking advantage of blogs.
And to think I was worried about posting the article which set off this torrent of comments!
Dave
COM ArcObjects are not going to likely change for a long time. I’ve been programming with COM objects with .NET for quite awhile, although it’s not managed code and there are some very small extra steps to take when working with unmanged code, it’s no big deal.
9.1 Java ArcObject was COM + JIntegra as the JVM bridge. At 9.2 AGS the Java ADF is Java, built separately – no interop layer, but with same functionality as the .NET ADF, better integration with Java IDE’s (Eclipse, Sun) using JSF. So if you’re a Java developer you’re really going to be pleased with the development environment and dealing with these objects.
As for Linux — it’s still mainwin emulation, so even though no more JIntegra, you are still running a win emulation env. on Linux == less performance, so when architecting, and end user env is ‘nix you have to take this into account in terms of managing hardware for performance.
As for AGS customization — the Manager application will do 90% of what most basic sites will require, so you don’t have to code. However, if you do have to put in stuff not covered by Manager app, say crack it and code it in VS.NET, yes it is more complex than 9.1. But this isn’t just AGS, this is Web 2.0. Anyone who’s been programming say ASP.NET 1.1 and has been moving to the 2.0 model (AJAX) probaly has seen this rude awakening. Your Javascript skills better be pretty good. So yes, get a good ASP.NET 2.0 dev, or JSF dev with AJAX/Web 2.0 exp. (Server side code and client side code expertise) if you need to really customize the heck out of a AGS app. But like I said, this isn’t unique to AGS, all web dev’s are facing this in the web 2.0 world.
That’s good news about Java. I too do most of my work in .NET and find no real issues. I’m glad to see they addressed the Java side of things, though. I got a few extra gray hairs over that project.
you can run the entire suite on one powerful box and it runs just fine. We split between two boxes initially and found they were severly underutilized. These were both dual hyperthreaded boxes, with the SDE box having 8gb of RAM (overkill). We run everything on one server in the development environment and it runs fine. This is at a company serving to 1000+ users. If you configure your servers right thye can handle anything. If you don’t you end up throwing more hardware at the problem then you should. Licensing shouldn’t be a problem.
@J Wallis – I think the ability to run off a single server is purely subjective, it has everything to do with your user base, your dataset and your workflow. If you are running 1000+ users (concurrent?) I can’t imagine they are doing anything intensive, what are their use patterns for a typical day?
that being said, the real problem as I see it is that AGX and the new AJAX type viewers are connection intensive, web servers need to handle a lot of http connections to keep them responsive. The ADF traditionally ran on these web servers but was free, so you could spread your front-end connection load across several cheap web servers. Now you’ll get wacked for setting up a site like this and IMO, responsiveness will suffer the most. Does ESRI have any metrics that show how a well traveled 2d or 3d service performs on a single server?
performance counts, that’s why GE and tiled maps are popular right now. ESRI gave us caching and then essentially took it away by forcing access through the ADF as opposed to a simple file based URL. Presumably they felt the loss of map making CPU cycles (and thus more licensed SOCs) warranted charging for the ADF as the access point to the pre-rendered caches. booooooo.
Alright. I’ve read all these posts and held my tongue long enough so here is my 2 cents for what it is worth. The AGS costs are outrageous, that is a given if the info here is true. Putting all of the components on a single box is just dumb. In terms of security there is no safe place to put that box (physically or in your network). If someone pulls the plug on that box your site is done. If a hard drive goes down you are done. If you get a virus on that machine you are done. It’s just too risky and it defies the distributed trend. ESRI themselves advise scaling by adding SOC boxes (although they haven’t supported distributed failover/round robin recovery).
I did extensive work with AGS at the 9.1 level but only spent 2 weeks working with ESRI’s web controls before I threw them out. Too much ESRI js, too many session variables. i took the route of using AGS as a way to simply use AO objects on a server (something that was possible before the rise of AGS [if not legal]). Roll your own controls and use IMS for the map. I think developers are going to have the same experience with the esri wizard websites. Wizards are great for demos but when you have to modify someone else’s js (and now AJAX) it’s not so much fun.
On a side note: Thank you James and Dave for providing this discussion. I’m going to start looking into these open source alternatives because there has to be another way.
Ok, I think it’s time to break out the pitchforks and torches and head to Redlands!
This whole shift in the pricing structure seems to be to be a shell game, it appears that the change in pricing for AGS was done in advance of the shift in pricing for the ADF. Now ESRI can come back and say “Hey look at all the great stuff you get when you have ArcIMS and ArcSDE, you get a copy of ArcGIS Server Standard too!” but they don’t tell you that you need to pay more to get all of the goodness in the ADF.
As for the performance aspect, as a person who used to manage the network service of a large ESRI user I have to say the concept of having all services on a single box is horid. When you start to use ArcSDE in a widespread manner you are starting to create load on the database, so you want to offload the stress between 2 boxes, then you add in to that that the GIO process from ArcIMS and you see that ArcSDE getting more active, so you want to have that ArcIMS on its own machine to make best use of it’s resources. Now your looking at 2-3 boxes and you are not even looking at the needs of the ADF.
Now you might be able to consider a nice 4-8 way server to power this whole system, but then you are hit with the updated license costs for multiple CPU’s, this is getting to the point where it is less a matter of what you can do with the hardware, its a matter of what can you afford with the software.
Agreed. And I think anyone who has worked with ArcGIS products in general will agree that there are times when you need to reboot a box for no other reason than that is what will fix an issue. This also takes down the entire single box system.
And one other rant before I get my fork: If you are an EDN subsriber and you felt like they were going to help you out take a look at the Code Exchange tab on the EDN website. The most recent piece of ESRI sample code was posted on July 2005. Enough said.
What incentive does ESRI have to help developers? I have had issues using esri software and contacted support. If the issue was detailed enough they shut you out and start talking ‘professional services’. I take that to mean ‘it’s our software we are the most capable of satisfying your customer hand it over’.
It is liberating to get this out. I feel fresh!
Yah, from the EDN point of view I have to agree fully. You would expect that being a BP and EDN user you would get maybe special access or something into the back-rooms to doing the cutting edge type stuff, but you don’t even get any DSG with EDN.
You are almost better off just getting the BP bundles not EDN then you can atleast get DSG access without the additional cost. Sure you are paying more, but when you hit that wall with support you atleast have the ability to escalate the call.
And James I am not trying to start another ESRI flame war!
I guess I’m just a facilitator for these kinds of things huh?
“Still I can’t believe at this point in time ESRI is not taking advantage of blogs.”
Taking advantage of them how? By turning them into marketing zombies? User blogs are only worth reading when they aren’t corporate tools and people know the difference between a blog and a marketing trick.
Quick note on Java – the Interops for talking to AGS with the ADF are not gone. By default the ADF will use web services to talk to the AGS but you if you talk DCOM to the server then you will be using the interops. Basically, any operation not exposed through the WDSL on AGS will have to use DCOM and the interops. This applies to all supported platforms. The nice part about using the Web Services API to talk to Server is that the Java ADF could be hosted on a Mac box. I could give more info if needed….
About Java – yeah, what Steve said. At the end of the day, I think it’s a better developer experience. I have not yet had the chance to program with the Java ADF 9.2. However, I was sitting beside my co-worker who does mostly Java and has done a few 9.1 AGS projects in Java.
He kept firing out comments like “Wow, this is awesome! ” ” you don’t have to do the stuff you did in 9.1″ , the gist of things being, it’s a more natural programming model and easier to deal with for java programmers.
He was excited.
“Taking advantage of them how?”
By responding to this thread and others like it. Ignoring this problem only makes it worse. There could be real good reasons ESRI is going this route for the ADF, but I have yet to hear one.
I get the feeling that the only way to get a firm answer will be to get everyone here on this thread to call both there customer service rep and there BP rep if they have one and say, “Whats the deal here, we need a written response to what we can and can’t do here!”, this way we can then compare what were are told and can see what the differences are.
OK, this is depressing. I was actually getting ready to migrate an older MapGuide website to AGS, but given these new license restrictions, that just won’t be happening.
I’m going to look at MapGuide Enterprise, but we are an ESRI shop and it would have made sense to stick with ESRI. I guess not.
Take a look at MapGuide or UMN Mapserver with Openlayers.
All you .NET folks can use MapGuide with a modern AJAX interface or just use the wonderful OpenLayers interface.
Doug
At some point it would be nice if ESRI folk actually really blogged and responded in blog threads and you know… engaged in conversation through other means except through marketing over the phone.
Lame, pure and simple
David –
I asked them for a written description of the new licensing terms and conditions, and I got no response.
So I decided to post the details as I knew them after things started shipping, in the hope that a small mob shouting is a little louder than one voice.
I know alot of ESRI people read both James and my blog, so maybe this will shake something loose.
As for them not posting anything official on a blog – that’s pretty much standard practice for almost any company. “Control the message” is the mantra. Unfortunately, by not being proactive, they have lost (partial) control of the conversation. I hope that everyone calls their rep, and demands answers on this.
Dave
I talked to our local rep and he said he had no idea about anything. He begged off on answering.
It is so frustrating. I’m trying to sell upgrading our old ArcIMS 4 site and they can’t give me any idea the cost. I realize it is Thanksgiving, but if I don’t get my budget in by the end of Thanksgiving, there will be no ESRI Server product for me in 2007.
What a way to enter a holiday, pissed because your software vendor can’t keep their story strait on something they’ve been working on for 18 months.
I think a lot of people are missing the point. They are charging by the socket. As Intel and AMD cram more and more cores on a socket, the need for multiple machines is really is pointless. But if you must, you could use the virtualization technology in these CPUs to have separate web servers. Intel is fixing to come out with a quad core CPU….that times 2 sockets gives you 8 logical units. Slap AGS on that and you have a winner.
…assuming that your server is using dual, quad, + core architecture.
Not everyone can afford to just go and replace their servers.
Not all architectures use AMD or Intel.
Multi core is the future of CPUs for the next decade or so. You an buy a machine with 8 cores (4 cores per CPU, dual CPUs) machine from Dell right now. I bought my wife a dual core laptop last summer and dual core is increasingly the standard for desktop and laptops. In a year, quad core will be the standard for desktops.
What architecture were you planning on running AGS on that wasn’t AMD/Intel/SPARC? They and their OS’s all support multiple CPUs/cores.
Dave,
Yah I did the same thing, I actually sent my BP and another ESRI Broomfield guy links to this thread and yours essentially saying “Hey the guys who pay for your software need feedback”. I hope that they will see that there needs to be some official infomation from the “Jack” level!
Anybody want to place some bets??
So there you have it. Don’t worry about the double price of ArcGIS Server because you can have an 4 core super server…
Again ESRI is casting off the small guys in support of the big fish.
Doug,
Multicore is great, yes you can build a huge box with a few of these up and coming 4 way chips that can handle all your apps on one box. But when you work in a commercial environment you need to have redundancy, so you build 2 or 3 or in some cases 4 boxes, do you want to pay for your ArcIMS/ArcSDE/AGS for 4 cpu x 4 machines?
The idea of distibuted architecture is for redundancy and scalability, so all of your eggs are not in one basket. You can have a huge redundant SQL/Oracle box that isn’t ESRI licensed. You then have a couple smaller scale ArcIMS and AGS servers that distibute the load without the bigger cost.
To me that will cost less, A Charge per socket is fine, but I think the bigger question everyone has here is “Where is the Documentation and Pricing???”
well, if you plan on running all the latest software on years old hardware then you should understand what you’ve got coming to you.
as far as not all architectures use AMD or Intel, if you are running ESRI software that is about all you get. AFAIK, even though ESRI supports other OS platforms, its always the x86 flavor of that OS.
Joseph,
its not a matter of old hardware, its a matter of proper IT planning. I worked with a firm that built a nice big SAN system, they put 5 Million dollars in revenue generating data on that SAN, but when the SAN controller failed you had nothing.
So you plan for contingencies, in my case because your software generates revenue, if your system goes down, you have no revenue and can’t afford to pay your tithe to Redlands. I don’t have a problem paying the money, but I need to be able to justify it, and if the only explantion we have is because 3 of 5 of the ESRI folks think this is how its supposed to be, I will have to dust off the resume. The documenation is the key to me, cost is a big factor but we need to verify the cost with the docs.
If you take a server with a 100 cores and someone kicks the plug out of the wall you have zero cores.
A friend just emailed me this thread. If this is true I can assure you that we won’t be using the ADF in our next deployment.
Maybe I’m reading more into this, but if you want to use AGX, you’ll need the ADF and that ADF needs to reside on the same server as AGS or you have to pay extra.
Did I read that right?
@War Eagle – AFAIK, that is correct. AGX and the AJAX clients use ADF exposed endpoints.
multi-core – while nice, these do not address redundancy, security (everything needs to be in the DMZ, Dave’s initial concern), or connection scalability.
I’d love to see some real testing numbers from ESRI on all of this…
Performance -
The system design strategies paper was updated and posted by Dave Peters a few about four weeks ago.
His group has been doing quite a bit of testing with 9.2. Due to the map cache, performance is obviously better in 9.2 if you are using the map cache.
He also said that 9.2 performance is better due to AJAX as now some processing that was server/updating of UI has now been offloaded to the UI.
@rachel – I just read through that document (October 2006 right?) and I did not see anything on “map cache” or “globe service” or AGX load testing. Did I miss something? (I could have, that’s a dense document with lots of info)
cheers
brian
@Brian:
No, this was from talking with Dave Peters in one of his training courses.
The new posted arch doc is supposed to address 9.2 though (in terms of performance)
@RageCage
yeah, and if your big database backend goes down or your front end web server(s) go down your AGS app is down anyways.
We plan for redundancy around here but systems are so interdependent the redundancy is just smoke and mirrors to make the management feel good. I currently have ArcIMS split apart from the the DBMS, but if that server goes down arcIMS isn’t going to magically keep running, having 10 arcIMS servers isn’t going to help things either. If you want to build totally redundant systems you’d need to mirror the entire environment and provide failover at the swtich. In a case like that the licensing is completely fair.
re:Multi-Core…
The ESRI “per-socket” licensing only covers the first two cores. After that you pay more. Since core will likely go up in even increments, you likely need yet more licensing.
@David Wright – are you in the Denver area? If so then your BP rep and mine are the same guy. And if he’s not talking now, then maybe things are being reviewed inside ESRI.
Overall, I’m really glad that this many people are concerned about the same issues I am – redundancy, security and what seems to be a big cash grab for the ADF.
Cheers & Happy Thanksgiving (for those in the US)
Dave
I’ve not heard that -anywhere-. My rep has said nothing about anything past 2 cores. The only line that has been stated by ESRI (both personally and in front of hundreds at the What’s new seminar) is that licensing is by the socket.
J Wallis;
I was told by my BP Rep that the licensing schema was per socket. Not per core. I expect that will change once we start seeing 4 and 8 way chips but at this point if you have a server that takes 2 CPU (2 Cores each for a Xeon) then you pay for 2 sockets.
Right, thats what I was told. Per socket. At the time they did their licensing Quad Core CPUs weren’t out yet so how could they have accounted for them. I would resist any moves for them to start charging by the core unless they started writing their software to take better advantage of multi core environments. As it stands right now the per socket licensing is really following Microsofts SQL server licensing more than anything. thats why with the workgroup editions of software you are limited to a single socket because thats what SQL Server Express is limiting you to.
I seem to recall being told that the pricing for ArcGIS Server (not ADF) was per socket for single or dual cores only. That was about a month ago, so I may have that wrong.
A client has just been asked to provide an architecture diagram so that their “upgrade entitlements” can be determined. The number of servers and sockets currently in use is apparently important.
Same client was also informed of a roughly 30% price increase (in Australia). Still waiting for confirmation on the ADF licensing issue.
YMMV.
re: Cores –
I think the thing is that people simply have not asked them about this. I asked both my BP rep and one of ESRI’s senior architecture guys, and both confirmed that it is per-socket, up to 2 cores.
Timing is everything, and now that you can buy a quad cores server, ask ESRI about it.
Dave
Thanks for the blog James- it’s very timely indeed.
We’re about to undergo some AGS development over the next two months. Personally, I feel the ADF is perpetuating the same butt-ugly user interaction paradigm that we’ve been inflicting on users for far too long. The 9.2 licensing shift lends further supports my decision to ditch the ADF altogether.
R.
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Notice that in the Workgroup vs Enterprise capacity matrix that it states Enterprise base license = 2
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver/9.2/dotNet/
ESRI posted this white paper today to help us all get out heads around the licensing issues of ArcGIS Server.
http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.whitePapers.viewPaper&PID=66&MetaID=1214
And it looks like you get to put the ADF on one other machine if you currently are doing that. More than that and you have to pay more. This only applies to people grandfathered in. Seems like this makes it clear that you have to pay a seperate license fee to place the ADF on a seperate machine.
I appreciate the light ESRI has shed for existing ArcIMS and Server users but
how about something for new users. I guess I am also still upset about paying to deploy the ADF…
I agree… there are lots and lots of potential new customers who are not on maintenance at all. ESRI should focus a little effort on selling the idea of buying this expensive system.
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Is that not the most confusing document that you have seen from ESRI (save their license agreements?) Maybe someone can explain this (my ESRI rep cannot). I had 2 ArcIMS licenses, and 2 ArcSDE licenses, at 9.1, for 8 CPU each. ESRI sent me 2 keycodes for ArcIMS, 2 for AGS Basic, 2 for AGS Standard. I upgraded my IMS, and used my 2 keycodes. Now, if I want to upgrade SDE, what keycodes do I use? If i want to install my AGS Standard, I assume I can do so along with IMS, with my 8 CPUS??????
I see David Maguire has provided the ESRI rationale for now establishing that the “basic rule for new clients at 9.2 is ‘everything installed off the 9.2 server media requires a license’ ” and recommending that the WebADF, the SOM, the SOC and SDE all be installed on the same machine.
I can see how SDE can be paired with the SOC since the SDE component will only be the DLLs that communicate to the DBMS machine via Direct Connect. If you want any sort of failover or balancing, wouldn’t you want the SOM on a different box? How does the idea of the WebADF on the same box as the SOC sit with you all? As David described it, does it still present some of the securty concerns raised in earlier comments on this thread?
Ron
I suppose a link would be helpful:
http://gismatters.blogspot.com/2006/12/arcgis-server-92-part-ii-business.html
Since everybody hates the fact that the Web ADF needs to be licensed at a full blown AGS price, shouldn’t be effort out there already to start building an alternative (open source?) to the ESRI’s web ADF? People has been doing this for years for ArcIMS because it’s ActiveX connector and Java Connector quality. I know none of the COTS ArcIMS solutions built out there actually uses ESRI’s connectors (since ArcIMS 3.1 up to 9.1). I mean, the ESRI’s ADF teams, each (Java/.NET) got only three or four programmers, and only ONE key person on each team. Look how may post already here. And, more importantly, there are for sure things you will be running into that you can not do with the ADF (for example, using field alias in both related and joined table, as defined in relationship class in geodatabase or in memory, pick any field value to show in the left pane of toc in identify box for a relate, I have a long list…) etc. Customizing those in 9.2 ADF will just be harder than before.
Dear All,
I have been hired as a consultant by a large govt body who have acquired ArcGIS Server 9.2 Enterprise edition. My task is to develop web applications using the same but to my utter disgrace and frustration with ESRI,
I’ VE BEEN TOLD BY OUR LOCAL ESRI REP THAT YOU CANNOT INSTALL ARCGIS 9.2 SERVER 0N A TEST DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT AND THE THEN MOVE IT THE REAL WORLD!
Isn’t this a lie? and if NOT how do people develop on real world servers? and ………???.
Since I have to work and have earn a living on my short time contract, who will crucify me for looking for ways of cracking the AGS??
Regards John
John, to develop and install development environments wherever you want you need a EDN (ESRI developer network) License and using this you are not allowed to transfer it to a production environment
John, if you have a production copy of ArcGIS Server, you can do what you want with it. If you have a development version license of AGS, then you can’t move it to a production environment. Of course you can’t use one license two places so maybe that is what they mean about moving from development to production.
“John, if you have a production copy of ArcGIS Server, you can do what you want with it.”
… not exactly everything. You can’t create a web mappnig application and then charge users a monthly fee to access it – e.g. SaaS – for that use ESRI has a different price list from typical production.