FME Flow vs. FME Flow Hosted: Choosing the Right Deployment for Your Organisation

As an FME Certified Professional, a question I often get asked is how to choose between FME Flow and FME Flow Hosted. The key is to understand that your choice revolves primarily around where your data resides and what type of IT environment you favour. FME Flow and Flow Hosted aren't competing products, but rather two different deployment models for the same powerful enterprise FME engine.

The FME Platform is a comprehensive suite of four products, each with a distinct role:

• FME Form: The desktop application where you author your data integration workflows (workspaces). This is the development environment.
• FME Flow: The on-premises server that automates and integrates your workflows at an enterprise level.
• FME Flow Hosted: A fully managed, cloud-based version of FME Flow, provided as a service by Safe Software and Avineon Tensing.
• FME Realize: The Augmented Reality (AR) solution that extends the power of the FME Platform to mobile teams and field workers. It allows users to visualise, interact with, and update their digital data in the context of the real world using a mobile device.

Let's take a closer look at FME Flow and FME Flow Hosted to help you decide which is the best fit for your organisation.

FME Flow: The In-House Integration Hub

FME Flow is the traditional, self-managed server option. You purchase a licence and install it on your own infrastructure, whether that's a physical server in your office or a virtual machine in your own private cloud environment (e.g., Azure or AWS). Of course we can also install and manage it for you if you prefer, but the point is, with FME Flow, you control the deployment platform.

This model gives you complete control and flexibility. You are the administrator of the machine, which means you can:

• Integrate with On-Premises Systems: Connect seamlessly to internal databases (like Oracle or SQL Server) and file shares that are behind your organisation's firewall.
• Install Third-Party Software: Utilise specialised applications, such as Esri, that are required by your FME workspaces.
• Customise Everything: Have full control over the operating system, security policies, and network configuration to meet your specific IT requirements.
• Manage High-Availability: Architect a resilient solution by spreading the infrastructure across multiple machines for mission-critical operations.

You should consider FME Flow if your data and applications are primarily located within your own network and you have an IT team to manage the infrastructure.

FME Flow Hosted: The Managed Service

FME Flow Hosted is a managed service that delivers all the power of FME Flow without the burden of managing the underlying infrastructure. It is hosted and maintained by Safe Software, the creators of FME and managed and administered by Avineon Tensing.

This is a fantastic option if you want to focus purely on your data integration challenges, leaving the server management to the experts. Key advantages include:

• No Infrastructure Management: You don't have to worry about server hardware, operating system updates, or security patching. We and Safe Software handle all of that.
• Built-in Scalability: The service is designed to scale. We can easily adjust your server capacity as your data processing needs change, without the need for complex hardware upgrades.
• Cloud-Native Integration: It is perfectly suited for integrating with cloud-based services and applications (SaaS), such as ArcGIS Online, Salesforce, or various open data portals. The location of the service in the cloud makes these connections fast and straightforward.
• Flexible Payment Models: You can often choose between a pay-as-you-go model for burst processing or an annual plan for consistent, round-the-clock availability.

You should consider FME Flow Hosted if your workflows are largely cloud-based and you want to reduce your IT overhead and accelerate deployment time.

Making Your Choice: A Summary

The decision between FME Flow and FME Flow Hosted largely comes down to where your data lives and how much control you need over the server environment.

Ultimately, both FME Flow and FME Flow Hosted are powerful solutions that will automate and centralise your data integration processes. The right choice for your organisation will depend entirely on your specific circumstances.

Want to trial FME Flow Hosted? Just get in touch and we can set you up with a trial instance.