Why do I need a license manager for Portal user licenses (Enterprise 11.1, Linux)

[rmcooper_wcpss]

I am currently working on creating the license file to create a new Portal and am scratching my head over licensing. In the past we have only used AGOL and I am gathering that obfuscated a lot of the behind-the-scenes "magic" that makes it possible for individual users to access the products and functionality provided by their assigned user type.

For our Portal, we have can have 2 different user types: Viewer and GIS Professional Advanced.

At least 1 GIS Professional Advanced user is required according to the Portal licensing wizard. We mostly need Viewers, but would need some with this more highly capable user type so that's fine. For what it's worth, the GIS ProfessionalAdvanced user includes the ability to use ArcGIS Pro.

So I select the number of licenses for each user type and move forward and do not select add-ons for any other software. I'm then prompted for details for a License Manager.

When I've looked through the docs and Esri videos about setting up Portal, I've either missed or not seen anything about how the License Manager fits into all of this.

• Why do I need a license manager if I'm creating a license file in MyEsri?
• What licenses would the License Manager be managing that Portal can't?

I'm guessing it has something to do with licensing Pro for the GIS Professional Advanced users, but I'm not really sure. I need to be able to explain this to our IT team setting up all our servers why this additional piece of software needs to be installed and where. I've gotten ideas on where already, but would appreciate additional clarification on why the License Manager is necessary.

[MarleyGeddes · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Thank you for your comment. The relationship between ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS License Manager and ArcGIS Pro can be confusing – I’m hoping the information below will help.

First, I want to clarify the minimum license requirements for Portal for ArcGIS. You must include at least one foundational user type, which are user types that have administrative capabilities. You require at least one of these user types to assign to your Initial Administrator Account (IAA), which all organizations must have. Foundation user types include Creator, GIS Professional Basic, GIS Professional Standard and GIS Professional Advanced. The licensing interface on My Esri will indicate that you need at least one foundational user type and will list the foundational user types you have available.

When you license one or more of the following apps using named user licensing through ArcGIS Enterprise (meaning you include them in the Portal for ArcGIS license file), you will need to configure an ArcGIS License Manager with your Portal for ArcGIS component: ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Drone2Map and ArcGIS AllSource (new at 11.1). As you noted, the GIS Professional Advanced user type includes ArcGIS Pro Advanced, which is why you are being asked to enter your ArcGIS License Manager information.

If you do not plan to use ArcGIS Pro, or the user type extensions included in the GIS Professional Advanced user type, then I suggest using a different foundational user type that does not include ArcGIS Pro, such as the Creator user type. If you do plan to use ArcGIS Pro and want to license it through the GIS Professional user type, then I suggest reviewing these documentation topics to learn more about licensing ArcGIS Pro and configuring ArcGIS License Manager:

• https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/get-started/licensing-arcgis-pro.htm
• https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/license-manager/latest/configure-license-manager-for-use-with-arcgis-e...

I hope this help!

Cheers,
Marley

[rmcooper_wcpss]

@MarleyGeddes 

Thank you so much for this breakdown. What you've written makes sense and clarifies some of the hazier aspects of the relationship between Enterprise, License Manager, and Pro.

It appears that we only have 2 options for Portal users:

• Viewer
• GIS Professional Advanced

Based on my understanding of what you've written

• The GIS Professional Advanced user is the only type of these two that would be eligible for the Initial Administrator Account
• Since there are no other eligible User Types, we must license at least 1 GIS Professional Advanced user.
• Since ArcGIS Pro Advanced is in the Included Applications list for this User Type, we will need to implement the License Manager.

Am I characterizing this correctly?

Thank you for sharing the additional links. I understand better why I need the License Manager, but looking am still a bit unsure of where to advise our IT team to install. Is it OK to put it on the same machine as Portal? Or does it need its own server?

[MarleyGeddes]

Yes - you can install License Manager on the same machine that Portal for ArcGIS is installed. It is light weight and does not require a separate server. It is the machine information where License Manager is installed that you will input when creating a Portal for ArcGIS license file. 

If you do not plan to use the ArcGIS Pro with your GIS Professional Advanced license, it might be a good idea to reach out to your account manager (or whoever you work with to determine your licenses) and ask that you have Creator user types instead of GIS Professional user types. That way you would not need to think or deal with License Manager at all. Just a thought!

Good luck! 

[JalesM]

Portal needs the License Server Administrator to handle any of the Named User Licenses. The GIS Professional Advanced license includes a Named User license for ArcGIS Pro with the user type, hence the LM is needed to serve that license on the backend. See the following documentation:

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/get-started/overview-of-named-user-licensing-in-arcgis-ente...

https://enterprise.arcgis.com/en/portal/10.9/administer/windows/configure-arcgis-pro-licenses.htm#ES...

[Lwkrynock]

@rmcooper_wcpss Thank you for this thread as I have landed at the same questions. I believe you are with WCPSS...I work at NC State in Facilities! I'm curious if you went ahead and installed ArcGIS license manager? And, if you're using it, how's it working? We just recently purchased ArcGIS Indoors Maps for ArcGIS Enterprise. Part of the Indoors Maps is an extension for Pro so I believe in order to use this, we need to begin licensing Pro through AGE (but only for a few of us). Anyway, I appreciate any insight you have to offer on this since we seem to have a similar setup in terms of available licensing, user types etc.