Glossary
On-Premise (On-Premises)
On-premise (also written on-premises or on-prem) describes software deployed on servers that the customer owns and operates, rather than on infrastructure managed by the software vendor.
General definition
On-premise deployment means installing and running software on physical or virtual servers that the purchasing organisation controls. The servers may sit in the organisation’s own data centre, a colocation facility it leases, or a private cloud tenancy, as long as the organisation manages the underlying infrastructure and the vendor does not have routine access to it.
- Full control over data: no customer data passes through the vendor’s network or systems
- Customisable networking: air-gapping, private VPNs and custom firewall rules are all possible
- Compliance by design: makes it easier to demonstrate to auditors that data stays within a defined boundary
- Operational responsibility: the customer’s team handles updates, backups, scaling and incident response
On-premise is often contrasted with SaaS (software as a service), where the vendor hosts the application and the customer accesses it over the public internet. In practice many vendors offer a middle path: a dedicated server hosted by the vendor in an isolated environment, or a bring-your-own-cloud model where you supply the cloud account.
In the Ethora ecosystem
Ethora supports genuine on-premise deployment for its chat server and AI agent layer. Customers in healthcare, insurance and financial services use this option when policy or regulation requires that message data never leave a controlled environment.
For organisations that want the benefits of on-premise without managing the infrastructure themselves, Ethora also offers a dedicated server option, where Ethora manages the hardware but the instance is isolated and exclusively yours. The choice between the two comes down to who you trust to operate the stack, not whether the data is protected.
