How Episerver Mixes SaaS, PaaS, & On-Prem
Chris Osterhout SVP of Strategy#CMS, #Episerver, #Digital Strategy

We look at how Episerver combines SaaS, PaaS, and on-prem hosting to create the most comprehensive digital platform on the market.
By integrating with Episerver’s powerful CMS platform, these systems can provide new capabilities for website owners. However, many of these site owners don’t understand how Episerver’s product offerings can bring value to their organization, so we wanted to look at how the combination of a variety of options provides unparalleled power and flexibility to CMS websites:
Episerver Comes in 2 Forms
In order to understand the flexibility that Episerver provides, you have to understand that the Episerver CMS and Commerce platform comes in two basic forms: on-premises (a.k.a “on-prem”) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). Let’s look at what we mean when we talk about these forms of Episerver hosting:
On-Prem
Many traditional enterprise companies aren’t ready to host their sites and/or services in the cloud for a variety of reasons, including security concerns, integrations with existing systems, or individual business requirements. These organizations opt for on-premises hosting within their own environment or space leased from a hosting provider.
Organizations who utilize on-prem hosting are responsible for patching their CMS software and other applications, providing the associated security measures, and maintaining the hosting infrastructure for their website.
PaaS
The other option available to Episerver users is the service known as the Digital Experience Cloud (DxC). In this scenario, Episerver provides the infrastructure and security considerations for a website using cloud-based hosting built on top of Microsoft Azure.
With this option, a website’s developers have the flexibility to manage the code of multiple applications while Episerver manages the infrastructure, scalability, and application uptime.
A Multitude of Additional SaaS Options
While these two basic hosting options can provide a great deal of flexibility to Episerver CMS users, Episerver becomes even more flexible with the addition of a variety of Software as a Service (SaaS)-based offerings. These services include:
- Episerver Find, which provides powerful site search capabilities.
- Peerius, which uses machine learning and predictive analytics to power real-time personalization.
- Optivo, which allows site owners to communicate seamlessly with their customers across multiple channels.
These cloud-based services are available no matter what type of platform configuration you utilize for your site. This flexibility gives organizations the ability to select the combination of services that is most appropriate for their business needs without sacrificing the ability to remain agile in the digital marketplace.
By giving each individual organization the power to choose exactly what services to utilize in their digital strategy, Episerver provides the most comprehensive CMS capabilities on the market. If you want to know more about how Episerver can give you the ability to meet your customers’ needs and maximize the ROI of your digital efforts, please contact us. We look forward to helping you build a successful digital strategy through Episerver!
Have questions or comments about this post? We'd love to hear from you.
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