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Portkey provides two enterprise deployment models with identical feature parity—SaaS Enterprise and Hybrid. This page explains the security posture, data flows, and shared-responsibility boundaries for each model—so InfoSec teams can assess risk quickly and choose confidently.
Air-gapped deployment is no longer offered. Portkey no longer provisions new fully air-gapped deployments. This content is retained for reference and for customers with an existing air-gapped deployment, which remains supported.Contact us to discuss deployment options.
Air-gapped columns are retained below for reference and for customers with an existing air-gapped deployment.

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Security Comparison (at a glance)

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What leaves your environment?

  • SaaS: Runtime traffic remains in the selected region. Minimal control‑plane metadata is stored centrally; customer data (logs/metrics) retained per policy (90/365 by default) with zero‑retention and PII scrubbing options.
  • Hybrid: Application data, prompts, responses, and logs stay entirely in your VPC/on‑prem. Metrics are always emitted to Portkey’s control plane (ClickHouse) and can be hosted in your region of choice. IP/URL redaction supported.
  • Air‑gapped (legacy — existing deployments only): No outbound network calls for any purpose (including licensing and updates). All data remains inside the isolated environment.

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Data flows (per model)

SaaS Enterprise

  • Control plane is centrally hosted (no customer data resides here).
  • AI Gateway is deployed on regional edge; requests are served in the chosen region (e.g., EU‑only when EU is selected).
  • Persistent data stores (logs, metrics) are created in the customer’s chosen region (e.g., separate EU shards for enterprise customers).

Hybrid (Recommended)

  • Gateway runs inside your VPC/on‑prem; prompts, responses, and logs never leave your environment.
  • Operational metrics are always sent to Portkey’s control plane (ClickHouse); the ClickHouse DB can be hosted in your region of choice.
  • IP and URL redaction supported; data‑plane↔control‑plane connectivity can be Internet or private tunnel/VPC peering.

Air‑gapped (Legacy — Not Offered)

  • Fully disconnected deployment—no outbound traffic required for licensing or updates.
  • Container images are delivered via private registry or offline media; updates applied offline on your schedule.

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Common security questions

SaaS: Customer data is stored in your selected region (e.g., EU). Runtime requests are served in‑region via edge gateways.
Hybrid: All prompts, responses, and logs remain in your VPC/on‑prem stores that you control.
Air‑gapped: All data remains entirely within your offline environment.

SaaS: Minimal control‑plane metadata and region‑pinned logs/metrics per your retention policy.
Hybrid: Only operational metrics are sent to Portkey’s ClickHouse (always). IP/URL redaction supported. Your LLM logs explicitly reside in your databases; the control plane has no access to them.
Air‑gapped: No outbound telemetry; Portkey receives nothing.

SaaS: Default retention is 90 days (logs) and 365 days (metrics). Zero‑retention and PII scrubbing are available; a metrics‑only mode is supported.
Hybrid/Air‑gapped: Logs live in your S3/S3‑compatible store with your lifecycle and IRM policies. Fully offline for Air‑gapped.

SaaS: Provider keys are stored in Portkey’s vault with envelope encryption; KMS is supported (BYOK).
Hybrid/Air‑gapped: Bring your own KMS (AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, GCP KMS) for envelope encryption.

All models support SSO (SAML/OIDC), SCIM, and fine‑grained RBAC. Hybrid and Air‑gapped include local gateway RBAC.

Hybrid: Outbound destinations are Portkey control‑plane public APIs and the container registry. Data‑plane→control‑plane can be over the Internet or a private tunnel/peering. Control‑plane→data‑plane can use a tunnel/peering as well.
Air‑gapped: No egress—period.

Native exports (e.g., syslog/OpenTelemetry) and documentation are provided. In Hybrid/Air‑gapped, all integrations run from your environment.

SOC 2 Type II and other certifications are available via the trust portal. Pen test cadence and reports are available. Subprocessors are published with a notification policy (SaaS); Hybrid exposure is minimal; Air‑gapped has none.

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Shared responsibility

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Why Hybrid is the right choice

Data stays put

Keep prompts, responses, and logs in your VPC/on‑prem while still benefiting from a managed control plane.

Enterprise velocity

Teams reach production faster, adopt the platform broadly, and realize value sooner—without compromising security controls.

Operational safety

Avoid the patch debt and stagnation risk common in fully offline stacks while maintaining strict network boundaries and redaction.

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References

Portkey is now PRISMA AIRS AI Gateway. See it in action.

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Last modified on October 1, 2026