Cloud or On Premises Which Integration Route Fits Your Setup

The classic route, and the one the main setup guide on this site walks through. Both servers are yours, installed on your network. You configure Endpoint Central server settings inside ServiceDesk Plus (server name, port, protocol, API key), generate a technician API key in ServiceDesk Plus and store it in Endpoint Central under Admin → Integrations → ServiceDesk Plus settings, then enable the Endpoint Central menu and per-technician plugin access.

You get the full documented exchange: inventory into the CMDB, agent-raised tickets, deployment and status flowing both ways, remote control and system tools from the ticket, and event-based auto-tickets. You also own the upkeep — reachability, certificates and key hygiene are your job, which is the honest price of running the servers yourself.

If your help desk is ServiceDesk Plus Cloud, the joining piece is the Endpoint Central Cloud extension, added from the ManageEngine Marketplace or from within the ServiceDesk Plus Cloud console. ManageEngine describes the setup as a few clicks with no complex configuration — no server names or ports to nurse, because both sides are cloud services meeting on managed ground.

The working features mirror the same idea: tickets are automatically mapped to endpoints using the system name and domain against asset data already in ServiceDesk Plus; technicians can install or uninstall applications from the ticket; remote actions — shutdown, restart, hibernate, lock, Wake-on-LAN — and System Manager tools are available from the ticket; and every action taken is recorded back into the ticket's conversation for the audit trail. Device health and experience insights arrive through the DEX add-on where licensed.

Less than the marketing suggests, and in specific places. The technician's experience — asset in the ticket, act from the ticket — is deliberately similar. The differences live in the admin layer:

1. Connection care: on-premises means your names, ports, protocols and certificates; cloud means an extension whose connection ManageEngine maintains.
2. Authentication: on-premises runs on API keys you generate, store and rotate; cloud runs on the extension's managed sign-in between the two cloud accounts.
3. Change control: on-premises updates arrive when you schedule them (with the duty to retest the integration); cloud updates arrive when the vendor ships them.

You mostly do not choose the integration route; you choose where the products live, and the route follows. If your organisation runs its own servers — for data control, local network realities, or existing investment — the on-premises integration is complete and proven; just budget the small upkeep honestly. If your help desk is already cloud, take the extension and enjoy the lighter admin.

The genuinely hard case is the mixed one — one product local, the other cloud. Do not improvise that from either guide: check ManageEngine's documentation for your exact combination first, because reachability and authentication are designed differently on each route.

Only as part of migrating a product itself. The integration is not a feature you port; it is a relationship between two specific installs. If ServiceDesk Plus moves from your server room to the cloud, plan to rebuild the connection in extension form and re-verify asset mapping on the new side — and expect the asset records' history question to matter more than the connection question. Treat it as a small project with a test week, not as a settings toggle.