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Ask HN: How are enterprise web apps distributed?

2 points by rashoodkhan ↗ HN
Hey,

I have built a web application for a company and initially I wanted to host it on my servers and provide them access via a login and password. The company is insisting that the software and its data must live on their servers.

The web application is coded in Django with Postgres as the database. How do I distribute the application on their server without giving away the source code?

And in general, how are enterprise applications distributed? And how are updates provided?

Thanks!

5 comments

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byoung2
If you call it a SaaS app, they will understand that it lives on your servers.
rashoodkhan
Initially it was supposed to be that way. But some of their clients don't want any data living outside the country, hence they want to use their own server for storing the data.
jtfairbank
Could you just find a host in their country?
jfroma
The way it have worked well for us is to give them a VM image (ovf) as a blackbox. Look at github enterprise for example.

Edit

Regarding protecting your code do it legally first by contract, then look at code obfuscation tools for python.

rashoodkhan
Alright. I will try the VM method and see how to go about it. Thanks!