Customers who prefer this can run ServiceNow on their own servers, provided they have the appropriate hardware. ServiceNow prefers to sell cloud subscriptions.

One of ServiceNow’s best-kept secrets has come to light: the platform is not tied exclusively to the cloud. Robert Krohn, head of product development, admitted to The Register that the platform can run perfectly on databases other than the company’s. In other words, this means you should be able to run ServiceNow on your own local servers.

There are some conditions attached to this. In August, ServiceNow released a comprehensive guide for companies looking to install its platform on-premises.

For example, customers must have at least two compatible servers: 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 be able to sell you this on-prem option anytime soon. The heart and soul of the company lies in the cloud and therefore customers prefer to buy ServiceNow as a SaaS solution. ServiceNow is also busy with an AI push and the cloud is also the preferred infrastructure for these functions.

These cloud subscriptions bring the company a lot of revenue: ten billion dollars a year, to be exact. You don’t get as much revenue from on-prem customers, but there are still many companies today that continue to stick with on-prem infrastructure. This is one of the reasons why many IT vendors condemn on-premises. However, providers must remember that not every customer wants to move to the cloud.

Just ask SAP. The company has had several conflicts with on-prem customers in recent months because new functions are only rolled out via the cloud. Microsoft is also going this route and recently announced that it would discontinue the on-prem version of DynamicsGP. The supply of on-prem platforms and providers is slowly but surely running out.