On Premise

On premise software was traditionally installed and run on a machine located physically within a business’s premises. In the modern world the location and physicality of the server are less relevant.

Today on-premise software describes software where the user can decide where it is installed. This means it can be installed on physical hardware which is owned or onto a machine hosted by a cloud service such as Azure. With this type of software, the user controls the infrastructure on which the software runs; self-hosted is now a more apt description of what was on-premise software.

On premise can also be used to describe a software and hardware bundle which is physically located on a client’s premise by a third-party service provider. The client does not have control (or sometimes ownership) over the hardware (or the installation and configuration of the software) and all data involved remains inside the boundaries of the clients’ network.