Administrators may want to exert some control locally over subscription services or content delivery or both. Because each component in the subscription management framework is an independent application, with independent client configuration, different sources can be used.

Red Hat can delegate part or all of its subscription management functions to subscription management applications. Red Hat remains the primary source for subscription and content information, but it sends that information to on-premise applications, which then manage subscriptions and content locally.

Subscription management applications retain the global view and centralized control over subscriptions, but they allow administrators to define their IT environment in the subscription management setup. For example, IT administrators can create organizations that are independent of (and opaque to) one another to divide subscriptions, and can then create different environments within those organizations to manage content and repository access.

Using subscription management applications offers administrators control over configuration and the ability to improve performance based on network conditions or physical locations of machines.

Red Hat Subscription Management offers different on-premise suubscription services:

Subscription Asset Manager is included in the normal Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription, so on-premise subscription services are available as part of any Red Hat Enterprise Linux infrastructure.