Sometimes company-wide or facility-wide policies dictate that software in the cloud, a so-called SaaS product like anny is not to be used. In this case, an on-premises (or on-prem for short) installation is resorted to. What is meant by this? And does the booking system from anny also exist as such an on-premises solution? And what are the advantages for me as a provider?
An on-premises installation is, in short, an installation on "your own premises", i.e. on your own servers. We regularly offer the booking system of anny as a cloud solution, but an on-premises solution can also be installed in a very short time. This way we ensure that we can offer the best booking experience to organizations and companies with appropriate policies.
The power of containers
A cloud solution is ready for use immediately. An on-premises solution, on the other hand, initially requires more time to set up. However, since we use so-called containers at anny, we - and in the end, you - have a big advantage: The installation on the company's own servers can be carried out in record time.
Containers contain parts of our software and also bring along all dependencies, e.g. required additional software or interpreters, which would otherwise have to be installed manually. This technology has the advantage for us that we can replicate individual containers if required and thus distribute accesses evenly.
This is comparable to the construction of a house: If you build a house from scratch, this process takes quite a long time, as each component is created piece by piece on the construction site. However, if you use a prefabricated house, it is delivered in larger components and only assembled on site and is therefore ready for occupation very quickly.
How fast is the on-premises installation of anny?
Like prefabricated house construction, you can think of anny as an on-premises installation of the booking system. We only assume a building base, i.e. one or more servers. These should be through, for example, the software Docker, which make the operation of containers possible. The individual house components are then our containers, which are already ready and only need to be connected to each other on the new local server. In this way, we have the possibility to install anny on a provided system within a very short time. anny becomes a self-hosted booking system.
Within only two days we were able to install, configure and go live with the anny booking system as an on-premises solution on a server at the University of Stuttgart. Since then, all students of the universities and colleges in Stuttgart can book a vaccination appointment via anny.
Little effort for the IT department and high data protection
By using containers, we have very low requirements for the system on which the booking system from anny is to run. This means that it can be deployed quickly by the respective IT department. No dependencies have to be pre-installed in the correct version.
"Thank you so much already, it's really fun with you guys!" - Employees of the IT Department, Esslingen University of Applied Sciences
At anny, we already have some experience with on-premises installation on various infrastructures. We are therefore familiar with the usual pitfalls, such as proxies or firewalls, and know how to configure our system for this. In addition, our chosen approach allows us to run anny on multiple servers at the same time to create redundancy and failover.
Probably the most striking advantage of an on-premises solution is data security. The data is located entirely on the client's own servers; no data migrates outside. This makes it particularly attractive for strict internal data protection requirements or use cases that involve a lot of special personal data.
No cutbacks due to on-premises
The on-prem booking system from anny is effectively the same version as it is in the cloud. No losses are made. Since this instance is not shared with any other clients, individual configurations are also possible. For example, the default language can be set globally or certain functions can be switched off completely.
An anny on-prem installation is particularly advantageous for regional IT service providers, as it can serve many use cases while providing the maximum level of data protection.
So are there no disadvantages at all with on-premises? We would like to briefly discuss this as well, because there can be disadvantages on the infrastructure side (compared to the cloud solution). Our cloud infrastructure can absorb high load peaks and add additional hardware in a matter of minutes if necessary. This cannot usually be covered by the hardware of the on-premises installation without causing short-term unavailability.
On-Premises or Cloud? A conclusion
All in all, the on-premises variant of anny does not have to hide behind the cloud variant and offers the usual functions of the SaaS product. It is primarily suitable for high requirements or strict guidelines.
However, if you want to get started with the booking system from anny at very short notice and within a few hours, save money or be able to absorb peak loads, we recommend using the SaaS solution from the cloud.
