On-premise software
What is on-premise software?
On-premise software runs on a server the company owns or rents, instead of inside the vendor’s cloud service. The company holds the data, the access and the versions, and in exchange takes on the hardware, the updates and the backups. It is usually paid for with a licence plus support rather than a monthly subscription to a service.
Example
A manufacturer has a workshop where the internet drops several times a month. The warehouse terminals have to keep working through it, because dispatch does not stop. The server sits in the office, the program runs on the local network, and only a scheduled stock exchange goes out to the website.
The arithmetic has two sides. A cloud service at €60 a month is €720 a year, and that includes updates, monitoring and backups. A local install swaps this for hardware, electricity, a UPS, a second copy kept off site, and a few hours a month from somebody who watches it all. The amounts are illustrative; the decision is rarely made on them, but on what happens to the work when the line is down and who answers when a disk fails.
Why it matters for a business
On-premise gives control: the data is on your infrastructure, the version changes when you decide, and the work does not depend on an outside connection. The same control brings the duties — security patches, operating system updates, backups and, above all, a restore that is tested regularly. A backup nobody has tried is not a backup.
Data protection law does not change with the location of the server: the responsibilities of the controller are the same in the cloud and in the office, but with a local install the physical and network security are entirely yours. A mixed arrangement is also an option — the core system in house, individual services outside it.
When a bespoke system has to run locally, we allow for that while designing the web software, because it changes both the architecture and the support plan.
What to ask
- Who applies updates and security patches, and how quickly?
- Where is the second copy of the backup, and when was a restore last tested?
- What happens when hardware fails, and how long until work resumes?
- How is the system reached from outside, and how is that access protected?
- Does the licence allow a move to another server, and is there a route to the cloud later?