Can you use ArcGIS Online World Street Map MapServer for tiles?

[AnthonyCartwright]

I've been reviewing potential usage of Esri's ArcGIS Online services in an application. In this application, I allow users to configure various map providers including Esri (if they are licensed). I have Esri users that would like to use ArcGIS Online's World Street Map for basemap imagery only and they are already have licenses to ArcGIS Server where they would show features from. The application allows configuring a url to a MapServer to then pull tiles for basemap imagery from so easy to do but this brings up a question of ensuring they are allowed to use ArcGIS Online and the application can pass along the appropriate authentication via token to the REST requests.

I'm very confused after trying to dig into how to properly ensure that their usage of basemap endpoints online doesn't violate terms of service based on this summary . They have the licenses but I'd assume I need to ensure that their information is passed alone to Esri on their requests to track how many requests are tied to them. I've found the documentation for registering an application and getting token to pass along with requests to ArcGIS Online and have proven it out in Postman. I successfully got an access token which I can then pass along to request to ArcGIS Online.

What's confusing me is it seems nothing matters with tile requests. I don't see any usage showing up on the Application under my account. I have tested with GeoCodeServer and found that it does track usage for those requests and I can simply use the Service Proxy feature for Geocoding (very cool feature).

So, my question is do I need to have the token passed along with MapServer tile requests? It doesn't seem to track usage (I've tested with 30+ requests to make sure I'm passed the noted 8 tiles). It looks implied by Terms of Use but doesn't seem to have any evidence of actual usage being tracked.

https://services.arcgisonline.com/arcgis/rest/services/World_Street_Map/MapServer/tile/2/1/0?token=<mytoken>

[Anonymous User · Accepted solution]

Hi Anthony,

I think the image included shows credit usage for storing the geocoded results. Per this documentation - Transaction limits for ArcGIS basemaps and geosearch—ArcGIS Online Help | Documentation:

"Basemap and search transactions do not appear in your subscription usage reports and do not use credits. If you think you may exceed your transaction limit, contact your account manager or your local Esri office."

Hope this helps,

-Peter

[AnthonyCartwright]

Yes, I believe that article answers my question. So the answer is yes, the token does need to be passed with basemap tile requests as it is tracked....but doesn't show on usage. That makes more sense when I consider if users are just using basemaps and employ a reasonable cache period (30-60 days), then it is very unlikely any individual licensed organization I deal with would ever make 1 million "transactions" or 8 million basemap tile requests. 

I didn't realize that even just geocode search requests only cost credits for storing, great to know. I'll have to play with that more.

Marking answer as correct, thank you Peter.

[Anonymous User]

Glad it was helpful, Anthony!