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Honeycomb Private Cloud Deployment Models

Choose how you operate Honeycomb Private Cloud.

Honeycomb Private Cloud offers two deployment models to match your operational capabilities and compliance requirements. The difference is who manages the infrastructure.

Honeycomb-Managed 

Honeycomb handles all operational aspects of your Private Cloud instance, including installation, upgrades, monitoring, and scaling. You get Honeycomb’s operational expertise while keeping the data governance and compliance controls your organization requires.

Honeycomb-managed deployments offer two hosting options:

Honeycomb-Hosted 

Honeycomb manages and operates your deployment within Honeycomb-controlled cloud infrastructure. You get:

• Hands-off infrastructure management: Honeycomb handles everything.
• Optimized performance: Benefit from infrastructure tuned by Honeycomb’s platform team.
• Simplified billing: No separate cloud infrastructure costs to track.
• Faster time to production: Get up and running quickly with pre-configured environments.

This works well for organizations that want dedicated infrastructure and data isolation without managing resources.

Customer-Hosted 

Honeycomb manages and operates your deployment within your cloud account. You get:

• Complete data residency control: Your telemetry data never leaves your cloud account.
• Full network control: Keep your organization’s network security boundaries intact.
• Regulatory compliance: Meet requirements for data to stay within your governance structure.
• Cost flexibility: Apply your existing cloud discounts, Reserved Instances, or Savings Plans.

This works well for regulated industries that need data to stay fully under their governance.

What Honeycomb Manages 

With both Honeycomb-managed options, Honeycomb handles:

• Installation and configuration: Initial deployment and setup of all components.
• Upgrades and updates: Weekly deployment of platform updates.
• Monitoring and operations: 24/7 monitoring of platform health and performance.
• Scaling: Infrastructure adjustments to meet changing telemetry volumes.
• Incident response: Resolution of platform-level issues.
• Security patches: Timely application of security updates.

What You Manage 

Your team handles:

• Authentication: Integration with your identity provider (for example, Okta or SAML).
• Email gateway: Configuration for notification delivery.
• Slack integration: Custom Slack app setup (if using Slack notifications).
• User management: Honeycomb user provisioning and access control.
• Telemetry sources: Instrumenting applications and sending data to Honeycomb.
• Cloud account management: Cloud account administration (for customer-hosted deployments).

Self-Managed 

Your team manages all infrastructure. Honeycomb provides the software, support, and upgrade guidance.

This works well for organizations with highly secure, air-gapped, or tightly controlled environments that require complete infrastructure autonomy and have the operational maturity to manage complex distributed systems.

What You Control 

Self-managed deployments give you:

• Complete infrastructure autonomy: Manage all cloud resources and configurations however you want.
• Flexible update timing: Apply updates according to your internal policies and change windows.
• Custom infrastructure: Adjust resource allocation, networking, and scaling to your exact needs.
• Security control: Implement your organization’s security tools, monitoring, and compliance frameworks.
• Air-gapped capability: Deploy in highly restricted or disconnected environments.

What Honeycomb Provides 

Honeycomb supports your self-managed deployment with:

• Deployment guidance: Get documentation and best practices for installation.
• Upgrade packages: Receive weekly release packages with update instructions.
• Technical support: Access Enterprise support channels for troubleshooting and guidance.
• Architecture advice: Get recommendations for sizing, scaling, and optimization.
• Security advisories: Receive timely notification of security issues and patches.

What You Manage 

Your team handles:

• Infrastructure provisioning: Set up all required cloud resources.
• Installation and configuration: Deploy initial Honeycomb components.
• Upgrades and updates: Apply updates according to your schedule.
• Monitoring and operations: Watch platform health and respond to incidents.
• Scaling: Adjust infrastructure to meet demand.
• Backup and disaster recovery: Implement and test disaster recovery procedures.
• Security management: Apply security patches and maintain compliance.
• Integration management: Configure authentication, email gateway, and Slack integration.

Choosing a Deployment Model 

Consider these factors when choosing between Honeycomb-managed and self-managed:

Factor	Honeycomb-Managed	Self-Managed
Operational overhead	Low	Medium to high
Update deployment	Weekly, managed	Weekly packages
Infrastructure control	Shared (customer-hosted) or Honeycomb-controlled	Complete control
Best for	Focus on observability	Complete autonomy or air-gapped environments

Both models include enterprise support and full Honeycomb capabilities and performance.