Recently I tried to configure Appian on Kubernetes for desktop development but was informed that I needed to have a license for Self Managed accounts. This is confusing to me as I have been able to download versions of Appian since 2018 and install on local servers with no issues, licenses have been granted every time I make the request. In my opinion, these downloads and installations are self managed as Appian surely does not maintain the servers I have my installations hosted on. Can anyone help me understand the difference between the ability to download and install (what I call on premise) Appian environments and what are called Self Managed environments? It really makes zero sense to me and hoping someone can shed some light on this.
Apologies if this is duplicated anywhere, didn't really see anything directly related.
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I might be getting mixed up on terms, but I think one (on premises) is for Appian customers, and requires a license agreement with Appian, while the other (Self-managed) I think is for developers, most especially those employed by Appian Partners, to experiment and develop with. You can load a local install of Appian on your own machine if you want to do some wacky thing with recursion, knowing that if you somehow brick the thing, you can always just factory reset it and try again with a new install. You have a limited set of features to keep you from using that as your Prod environment without compensating Appian (which some folks might try to do otherwise).
With Community Edition I hardly see the point in local installs unless it's for the REALLY fun experiments, or for learning on a deep level exactly HOW Appian works. Community Edition might be why the process of downloading local installations has changed.
Alright, so one thing I didn't disclose, this is for my company and I believe we've been an Appian Partner for quite some time. We definitely have been paying for licenses for a while and I'm kind of familiar with that. So with that said, what's the difference?
The main difference between an on-premise Appian environment and a self-managed Appian environment is who manages the infrastructure and where it's hosted.
An on-premise Appian environment is installed and hosted on the customer's own infrastructure, such as their own servers or data center. In this case, the customer has complete control over the hardware, networking, security, and maintenance of the Appian environment.
On the other hand, a self-managed Appian environment is still hosted by the customer, but the infrastructure is managed by Appian. In this case, the customer is responsible for installing the Appian software on their own infrastructure, but Appian provides ongoing management and support for the environment. This includes monitoring, maintenance, upgrades, and security patching.
In both cases, the customer has the ability to download and install the Appian software on their own infrastructure. However, with a self-managed environment, the customer is essentially outsourcing the ongoing management and maintenance of the environment to Appian.
The choice between an on-premise and self-managed Appian environment depends on several factors, including the customer's IT infrastructure, security requirements, budget, and IT resources. An on-premise environment may be preferred if the customer has a large IT team and wants complete control over the infrastructure, while a self-managed environment may be preferred if the customer wants to outsource the ongoing management and maintenance to Appian.