Enterprise License Provides Unlimited Access to ESRI GIS, Supporting the Use of Geographic Data and Analysis across the City

ESRI Canada today announced that the City of Lévis has signed a three-year enterprise license agreement (ELA) that will enable the municipality to cost-effectively expand its use of ESRI technology and establish an enterprise geographic information system (GIS). The GIS will help optimize the use of the City’s land information and other location-based data by enabling hundreds of internal users to apply the data and the system’s powerful analysis tools to enhance decision making. This, in turn, is expected to significantly increase efficiencies in municipal planning, operations and service delivery.

The City of Lévis was formed in 2001 through the amalgamation of eight cities in Québec and currently serves a population of 137,000. Previously, municipal geographic information was managed using Computer-Aided Design (CAD) technology that only allowed for data searches, without providing any tools for spatial analysis. Realizing the limitations of their CAD system, the City adopted an ESRI-based technology approach in 2006 as part of its GIS Strategic Plan. Since their initial deployment of ESRI’s ArcGIS technology, they have realized significant productivity gains, as well as time and cost savings. To expand efficiencies throughout the City, they began the development of an enterprise GIS called “GOcité” in 2008, which will support continuous improvements in city planning, zoning, engineering, public works, property assessment, parks management, public safety and economic development.

“We moved to a GIS-centric environment built on ESRI because the technology meets all our requirements for managing, analyzing and sharing data,” said Sébastien Roy, Geomatics coordinator, City of Lévis. “As our City’s geomatics needs continue to grow, our enterprise license will allow us to deploy GIS solutions flexibly across the organization while controlling system integration costs. It will help increase our users’ productivity by providing them with powerful data management and analysis tools to make better decisions and achieve our efficiency targets.”

The agreement will help the City to affordably establish an enterprise GIS by enabling large GIS deployments while lowering the cost per user. It simplifies technology acquisition by allowing them to avail of unlimited ESRI licenses through a fixed annual subscription. This makes it easier for the City to manage its GIS budget as the cost of technology and maintenance is predictable. It also increases user productivity and satisfaction by providing them access to the full suite of ESRI technology to support their work.

“In creating an enterprise GIS, users at the City of Lévis will gain an effective decision support system,” said Alex Miller, president, ESRI Canada. “The ability to combine land information with other types of business data will help them gain new insights on community concerns and enable them to make service delivery more efficient. It will allow them to enhance communications and effectively share information for more collaborative decision making. We’re pleased that through our enterprise license program, we’ve made it easier and more affordable for the City to access the technology and support they need to realize their vision of an enterprise GIS.”

The system will allow Lévis to extend their current GIS applications, such as the GOcité, to hundreds of users in the municipality, regardless of how familiar they are with geomatics tools and concepts. GOcité is an ESRI-based GIS solution for inventory management initially developed through a partnership of six major cities in Québec, which has grown to 10 cities today. It enables members to achieve economies of scale by leveraging a common GIS platform for managing and sharing basemaps, infrastructure, environmental and other spatial data.

In addition, the City will use the enterprise GIS to develop custom data analysis models and data distribution applications based on the needs of each department. It will also be used to create standards for maintaining geographic data throughout the municipality.

[Source: ESRI Canada press release]