BYO

Short definition

An arrangement in which the customer supplies and controls a building block an online service depends on — its database, its encryption keys, its model provider, its email gateway — the vendor continuing to operate the rest.

Full definition

The abbreviation comes from bring your own, and common usage declines it by block: BYO-Database, BYO-Key, BYO-LLM.

In the articles on this blog, BYO is not a technical characteristic but an answer to a demand for control. What the customer obtains is command of the location and of the policies that apply there — its network rules, its keys, its standards. What it does not obtain, and what makes the arrangement viable, is command of how the product evolves: migrations stay automated and driven by the vendor.

One trait distinguishes it from the other options: it makes no responsibility disappear, it forces you to say far more precisely who carries which.

Usage in the field

Used to designate the heaviest option in a range of answers to the need for control, of which a dedicated region or customer-managed keys are the lesser degrees.

Synonyms and variants

"BYO-Database" for the database case, "bring your own" spelled out.

Not to be confused with

• software installed at the customer's — the vendor operates nothing and several versions coexist. In BYO, the engine is still operated by the vendor and the product stays common.
• Whole product — BYO can be a component of the whole product for a given segment; it is neither its synonym nor its culmination.
• reversibility — the ability to recover your data and change provider. BYO can serve it without reducing to it.

Examples

Payroll software whose engine is still operated by the vendor, but whose database lives in the customer's Azure subscription, under its network rules and its keys.

Ambiguities / debates

The word suggests a symmetry that doesn't exist: depending on the block concerned, the cost ranges from changing an access key to a complete data migration.