Connecting to on-prem sources

Questions
1

Hi -

We are considering using N8N, however I’m uncertain which deployment route is best for us.

I like going for the cloud hosted option, but we have a lot of sources that sit on our IT and OT network. What are the options of connecting internal network sources up to a N8N cloud instance? Or is it better to go with the self-hosting option?

Thanks!

2

There are other things that may go into this decision, but the main ones are:

  • Security
    • Would it be acceptable (or even possible) to expose the internal resources via public-ingress, or tunnel/vpn to the public internet to allow n8n cloud to reach them?
      • Yes → Cloud
      • No → Self-Host
  • Resources / Scaling
    • Do you have compute/memory/storage available internally to manage your own servers/VMs/containers for n8n?
      • Yes → Self-Host
      • No → Cloud
    • Would you possibly need finer control over compute/memory/storage to accommodate demands that are specific to the workflows you intend to run?
      • Yes → Self-Host
      • No → Cloud
  • Licensing / Cost
    • Do you need “enterprise” features of n8n?
      • Yes → Investigate Enterprise License cost for Self-Host vs. Cloud
      • No → Not a factor for Self-Host, but Cloud Subscription/Plan has varying active-workflow limits, etc. on different license types.

Once you have considered those aspects, you should have a reasonably good idea which option is best in your situation.

3

Thanks for the feedback. Is there an easy out of the box way of creating a tunnel interface between on premise resources and an N8N cloud instance? Similar to what Microsoft offers with their “PowerBI Gateway”?

4

I haven’t looked at PowerBI Gateway before, but its use case, as I understand it from a quick review, is to essentially establish a kind of VPN to provide generalized access to resources on a private network to apps and functions in hosted in Microsoft’s cloud environment.

There is already a feature request titled Cloud instance support VPNs or SSH tunnels that I think describes the same want/need for n8n cloud. The general answer/response to that so far is a push toward self-hosting n8n, but you could add your vote to it and/or comments that might further clarify the need for it.

IMO, when/if n8n offers the ability to use a hosted/cloud instance, connected to a private network instead of the public internet, there could be quite a few customers interested in setting things up that way. For now, though, that doesn’t seem to be an option.

2 Likes
5

The self-hosting option is then the route for us at this point in time. Will add my voice to the VPN/SSH tunnel feature request, I agree it will open up N8N to potential customers that sit beween the cloud only and self-hosting options. Thank you for your feedback, I appreciate it.

6

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