On-Prem Software Distribution: Overcoming Licensing & Deployment Challenges
In our previous post on BYOA/BYOC, we discussed different approaches to SaaS distribution and specifically discussed BYOA/BYOC model in detail.
However, many of our BYOA/BYOC customers have the need to distribute their software on-premises, who are looking to retain full control and get assistance on an as-needed basis. Introducing OnPrem CoPilot, a way for your support team to automate their OnPrem operations.
Like BYOA/BYOC, you deploy your application in the customers' account. Unlike BYOA though, your customers will retain the full control and whenever they need help — whether it’s for initial installation, software upgrades, security patches, infrastructure updates, troubleshooting support, etc.— they can connect securely and get help for specific operation(s). Once done, they can continue to have full control and continue to operate independently.
Challenges with OnPrem Distribution
Traditionally, there are many challenges in operationalizing such a model:
- Security & Compliance – Maintaining compliance with strict internal and regulatory policies in customer environments.
- Complex Installations – Supporting varied infrastructure setups across AWS, GCP, Azure, and private data centers is time-consuming and error-prone.
- Version Management – Coordinating upgrades, patches, and deprecations across customers is tedious and inconsistent.
- License Enforcement – Preventing unauthorized use or replication of deployments is difficult to monitor and control.
- Limited Visibility – Hard to track customers, subscriptions, and their deployments across environments.
- Support Bottlenecks – Troubleshooting issues is slow and costly without real-time visibility or safe access into customer environments.
How Omnistrate Solves These Challenges
Omnistrate simplifies manual and OnPrem software distribution by providing:
- Flexible, Compliant Deployments – Deploy into restricted or regulated environments while enabling secure, on-demand support as needed.
- 1-Click Installations – Simplify deployment with a fully automated installer that works across cloud environments.
- Automated Version Control – Streamline upgrades and deprecations with structured workflows, reducing manual overhead.
- Integrated License Controls – Enforce subscription limits and prevent unauthorized usage with built-in license validation.
- Centralized Visibility – Monitor tenants, subscriptions, and deployments details from a single dashboard.
- Secure, On-Demand Support – Allow customers to temporarily connect their environment for expert help—ensuring rapid issue resolution without requiring persistent access.
Why This Matters for SaaS Companies
As enterprises increasingly demand flexible deployment models, enterprises must adapt to offer flexibility to meet the customers where they are. Traditional Terraform-based deployments and manual provisioning lack the automation and security guardrails needed for scaling OnPrem offerings effectively.
Omnistrate makes:
- Fully-hosted: you own customers' data and run app in your account in a fully managed way
- BYOA/BYOC: your customers' own their data and you run your app in their account in a fully managed way (more details here),
- OnPrem CoPilot: your customers' own their data and have control on when they provide access to your account for specific deployment and troubleshooting operations
If you're exploring any of the above deployment models, let’s talk about how Omnistrate can help streamline your distribution, licensing, and management workflows!
To learn more, see our docs. If you are interested in learning more about this topic, follow us here and our SaaS group!