Customers who prefer that may run ServiceNow on their own servers, if they have the right hardware. ServiceNow does prefer to sell cloud subscriptions.
One of ServiceNow’s best-kept secrets has been leaked: the platform is not exclusively tied to the cloud. Robert Krohn, head of product development, admitted to The Register that the platform can run perfectly well on databases other than the company’s. In other words, that means you should be able to run ServiceNow on your own on-prem servers.
That does come with some conditions. In August, ServiceNow shared a comprehensive guide for companies looking to install its platform on-prem.
Thus, customers must have at least two compatible servers free: one for the application and one for the database, with at least 16 GB of RAM per server. The preferred operating system is Red Hat Linux Enterprise, CentOS or other approved Linux distributions.
Preference for the cloud
ServiceNow won’t sell you that on-prem option too quickly. The heart and soul of the company is in the cloud, and so it prefers that customers purchase ServiceNow as a SaaS solution. ServiceNow is also in the midst of an AI push, and the cloud is the preferred infrastructure for those capabilities as well.
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ServiceNow can also run on-prem
Those cloud subscriptions earn the company a lot: $10 billion a year to be exact. You don’t get that much revenue from on-prem customers, but there are plenty of companies today that still cling to on-prem infrastructure. It’s one of the reasons why many IT vendors revile on-prem. However, vendors should keep in mind that not every customer wants to go to the cloud.
Just ask SAP. The company has had several run-ins with on-prem customers in recent months because new features are being rolled out exclusively through the cloud. Microsoft, too, is following this path and recently announced that it is scrapping the on-prem version of DynamicsGP. Thus, the range of on-prem platforms and vendors does slowly but surely dry up.