On-site Deployment
On-site Deployment (OSD) vs Software as a Service (SaaS)
The following highlights the considerations for each SD Elements option.
| For security considerations and more detail on how SD Elements is secured, see How is SD Elements secured? | 
On-site Deployment (OSD)
This option is available only for Enterprise customers.
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Additional support costs are captured in the OSD pricing. 
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Backup and monitoring for security and availability is the responsibility of the client’s IT. 
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Updates are generally available within a few days after the update for SaaS. 
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Updates need to be applied by the client’s admin (which is as simple as running a single command on the appliance). 
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Due to lack of access, resolving technical issues takes longer compared to SaaS and is usually done over WebEx. 
Software as a Service (SaaS) - Dedicated Instance
This is the default option for all medium and large customers.
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All customizations available to OSD can be done in SaaS dedicated instances. 
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Provides complete segregation. 
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Each instance has a dedicated server stack: web, application, and database server. 
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The running environments are completely isolated/segregated. 
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Data is backed up hourly and the whole system is backed up daily and stored securely offsite. 
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Data and service restoration can be done in a very short time in case of issues. 
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Firewall and IDS protected and all security activities are monitored by our trained staff according to industry best practices. 
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Monitoring available for application errors. 
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SSO available through SAML Federated authentication. LDAP is normally not possible since corporate LDAP servers are typically not available from the outside network. 
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Theming and other customization available. 
Software as a Service (SaaS) - Shared Instance
This option is used for Demo, Proof-of-Concept (PoC), and small clients only.
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All considerations of SaaS Dedicated Instances are applicable here except for data segregation. 
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Data is segregated at the application level. Each organization will have its own completely isolated space/sandbox. 
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Theming and SSO are NOT available. 
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Localization, such as changing the titles, Business Unit, Application, and Project to custom strings, are not available. 
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Custom Pluggable Reports are not supported. 
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Unless otherwise specified, other basic features such as APIs are available similar to other options. 
