Have ArcGIS Pro get license from License Manager through ArcGIS Portal

[Joshua-Young]

Currently when signing into ArcGIS Pro using an Enterprise named user two connections are made. One goes to Enterprise to authenticate and authorize the user and then a separate call to the License Manager to get the license. This creates an issue when a user is off network because the License Manager cannot currently be safely exposed to the internet. So a user can authenticate but not get a license when off network.

Please create a way for ArcGIS Pro licenses to be safely obtained from License Manager over the internet. That could be through ArcGIS Enterprise acting as a proxy between ArcGIS Pro and the License Manager, or maybe creating a "web adaptor" for License Manager.

[DiegoLlamasOlivares]

Also in Cloud implementation. 

[ScottKiley]

This idea makes perfect sense to me. Has there ever been an update on its status?

[Joshua-Young]

I have not received any update on this from Esri. The issue is still present as of ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1.

[Bud]

ArcGIS Pro 2.6.8; Oracle 18c 10.7.1 EGDB:

My organization currently uses ArcGIS Pro 2.6.8. That version is ancient and frustrating to use; we aren't able to take advantage of important bug fixes and new functionality in more modern versions of Pro.

I.T. has informed us that they can't upgrade Pro only (as an interim solution; while leaving everything else as-is, such as the database, Enterprise, etc.) because the version of License Manager being used isn't compatible with newer versions of Pro (and I.T. doesn't want to upgrade License Manager if not through a GIS upgrade project). A GIS upgrade project is planned, so we'll hopefully get a newer version of Pro and License Manager in roughly a year. But that’s still a long time to wait.

Idea:

For organizations like ours that have limited resources and are only able to do a GIS upgrade project every five years or so:
Can an alternative to License Manager be provided to avoid the need for separate licensing software that needs to be upgraded for new versions of Pro?

This isn’t my area of expertise, so let me know if I’ve misunderstood something.

Related question: Avoid being stuck with old version of ArcGIS Pro due to outdated version of License Manager

[NiekGoorman1]

The one thing you could do is to move your Pro licenses to Enterprise or AGOL and use named user licensing. That way you won't need a license manager anymore for most licenses (there are some exceptions).

Upgrading the license manager is a pretty trivial task though. If your IT department is willing to upgrade ArcGIS Pro but not the license manager, then that is really an organisational issue and your best option is to find someone high enough in the org tree to yell at them until they give in 😉

Lastly, running Pro 3.2 against such an old version of Enterprise might cause issues - I recommend you study closely the compatibility and possibly issues between the two. And I'm sure you're aware but 10.7.1 is already in mature support and will be retired by June next year.

[Bud]

Thanks @NiekGoorman1.

I wonder if the limitation with Portal or AGOL licensing is that it wouldn't allow for concurrent licenses.

Related: ArcGIS Pro Concurrent licensing retiring

[KoryKramer]

@Bud I merged your idea into this existing idea - note that it is In Product Plan. 

If you haven't already, you might want to point out to your IT department that by not keeping License Manager updated just because they don't want to puts the organization at risk. See the Supported software products section of the license manager documentation: https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/license-manager/latest/supported-software-products.htm The recommendation is to keep the LM as current as possible for the latest security fixes; note that it serves licenses to a number of products and back many, many versions.