FAQ: Is There an SDK for an ASR License?

Answer

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No, but...
ASR Licenses are tightly controlled, highly restricted licenses that are not tied to a specific system. Each ASR license requires a password and is digitally marked and assigned to a specific individual. ASR Licenses are not available to the general public nor should they be discussed with the public.

ASR Licenses are only available to the following groups:

Classified Organizations
Distributors

ASR SDK
There is no official SDK for ASRs due to the tight means by which the license and usage is controlled. However the following document is cleared for issue to any of the above groups upon request: Authorizing_ArcGIS_10_Using_ASR_Files.docx
ASR SDK Details
NOTE: HELP ORGANIZE THIS CONTENT!!!

Overview: The normal procedure for authorizing ArcGIS 10 involves the Software Authorization Wizard (SAW) interacting with Esri Customer Service. The SAW uploads the customer’s product and feature authorization numbers to Esri and then downloads the corresponding license fulfillments to the customer’s machine. This process can be done via the internet, email, or two-way file transfers.

For some 3rd party developers who embed ArcGIS Engine or Desktop in their own applications, the new ArcGIS 10 authorization process described above may not fit well with the authorization techniques used earlier with ArcGIS 9.x. Earlier versions of ArcGIS were authorized using ECP files or ESU9, which allowed considerable flexibility in terms of license redistribution and authorizing in disconnected environments.

For those 3rd party developers whose existing licensing model is incompatible with the normal ArcGIS 10 authorization process, a special method for delivering license fulfillments can be requested. This alternate method involves the use of “ASR” files to authorize ArcGIS.

ASR (Activation Specification Record) files are text files which can be used to deliver ArcGIS 10 Engine or Desktop single-use license fulfillments. The application of an ASR file takes place locally and does not require any interaction with Esri Customer Service.

In general, there is no limit to the number of times an ASR file can be applied on a machine or the number of machines on which it can be applied. This makes it important to tightly control access to ASR files. All ASRs issued by Esri are encrypted. A unique ASR password is provided by Esri to each 3rd party developer receiving ASR-based license fulfillments. The ASR password is used as a parameter to the ASR authorization and deauthorization interfaces. It is used internally by the Esri code to decrypt the ASR. The ASR password ensures that a 3rd party developer’s ASRs can’t be used by other developers’ applications. The ASR password is static for a given release and can usually be hard-coded into a 3rd party developer’s licensing code.

ASR defined: As mentioned above, the ASR license file is much like the prior ECP or ESU9 license files used with earlier versions of ArcGIS. An ASR is an XML-based text file which contains information about the specific authorizations (feature name, expiration date, version) to be fulfilled. The XML is hashed and signed; it cannot be altered.

ASR comparison to ECP and ESU9: The advantage of the ASR, in comparison to ECP and ESU9 licenses, is that the fulfillments it generates are bound to the physical attributes of the authorized machine. The internal files containing the license fulfillments cannot be copied from one machine to another. However, physical attributes of a machine can always change (for example, during major hardware upgrades) causing the binding of the ASR to break. If this occurs, the developer’s application must provide logic to repair the ASR, which will re-bind to the new physical hardware attributes.

Article ID:000011431

Software:

ArcMap

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Is there an SDK for an ASR license?

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