DATAROSS | Technology That Works For You

What changed

You used to buy your software. Now you rent it — at 5× the price.

When Broadcom acquired VMware in 2023, they eliminated perpetual licenses. Everything became subscription. Prices jumped 150% to over 1,000%.

A small company that spent $5,000 a year is now looking at $50,000. Forced bundles. 72-core minimums. 20% late-renewal penalties. Features you don't need, in packages you can't unbundle.

This isn't a VMware-only problem. It's the playbook: acquire, bundle, raise prices, lock in. Your infrastructure shouldn't be held hostage.

What they want you to pay

$48,600/yr

72 cores × $135/core × 5 servers

72-core minimum purchase
Subscription only — you never own it
Forced feature bundles
20% late-renewal penalty

What it actually costs with open-source

$2,500/yr

Optional support. Same capabilities.

No minimums. Pay for what you use.
You own your system. Take it with you.
No forced bundles. No penalties.
Open-source foundation — fully documented.

$46,100

Average first-year savings — documented

Documented outcomes

These are real numbers from real projects.

Not marketing copy. Not estimates. Measured results with before-and-after evidence.

Infrastructure · Scientific Research Company

60+ VMs migrated from VMware to Proxmox. Zero downtime.

After Broadcom's acquisition, their VMware bill was set to triple. Every virtual machine was migrated to an open-source hypervisor with equivalent capability. Production never went offline.

60%+

Annual savings

0 min

Downtime

Security · Defense Contractor

Insider threat detected, evidence preserved, systems restored. 48 hours.

Sophisticated insider attack identified. Full forensic evidence preserved with chain-of-custody for legal proceedings. All affected systems remediated. Monitoring implemented to prevent recurrence.

48 hrs

Full remediation

100%

Evidence preserved

Infrastructure · 1000+ Device Enterprise

Complete network redesign. 300+ users. Zero unplanned outages since.

High-speed backbone with proper security segmentation and built-in redundancy. Designed to fail gracefully — when hardware breaks (it always does), the network routes around it.

1000+

Devices supported

Unplanned outages

AI Integration · Technology Company

Hybrid AI system. Local processing for routine work, cloud for complex.

Your data stays on your hardware. Routine tasks run locally on high-powered GPUs. Complex work escalates to cloud APIs only when needed. Costs drop, privacy improves, capability stays high.

70-80%

Cost reduction

6-12 mo

Hardware ROI

How it works

Your problem gets the same process every time.

No guessing. No assumptions. The methodology is the same whether you have 10 servers or 1,000.

Reconnaissance

Before anything changes, your environment gets systematically mapped. Every config file, every firmware version, every security gap. If information is missing, a script gets written to find it. Nothing is assumed — everything is verified on the wire.

Assessment

Every finding gets a confidence score. You see exactly where you stand, what the gap is between current state and target, and what needs to change. If compliance is involved — CMMC, NIST, FIPS — every control maps to specific evidence from your actual systems.

Phased execution

Changes happen in phases with rollback procedures at every step. One thing changes, it gets verified, then the next. AI handles documentation, monitoring, and pattern recognition in parallel. Every action is logged: who, what, when, where, why, how.

Verification & handoff

You get complete documentation of everything that changed and why. Not a summary — the actual commands, the actual configs, the actual before-and-after state. If you ever need to hand this off to someone else, they can pick up exactly where it left off.

Operational infrastructure

This isn't a pitch. This is what's running right now.

Every workflow below represents real automation executing against production infrastructure. The controls are verifiable. The data is live.

75Managed Nodes

99.9%Mesh Uptime

24/7AI Monitoring

L2CMMC Alignment

CMMC L2 Compliance

⚡

Scheduled Audit

daily 02:00 UTC

☑

Control Scan

AU, AC, SC, IA, CM

✓

Verify Evidence

configs vs. 800-171

☷

POA&M Report

⚠

Gap Alert

Infrastructure Health

⚡

Continuous

every 25 seconds

◆

WireGuard Health

75 peers keepalive

✓

Classify Status

online / stale / down

▣

Dashboard

⚙

Auto-Fix

Server Onboarding

⚡

New Server

manual or API call

▶

Baseline Script

harden + VPN + monitor

✓

Verify & Register

mesh join confirmed

☷

5W1H Log

Foundation layer

Claude API + RTX 5090

☍

SSH Relay Triad

⚿

Credential Vault

◉

Monitoring Stack

◆

WireGuard Mesh

Operational today

Encrypted mesh VPN

75 WireGuard peers with 25-second keepalive across Proxmox clusters, cloud instances, and edge devices. Every node verified within 30 seconds.

SC.L2-3.13.1 · SC.L2-3.13.2

AI-assisted operations

Triple-relay command execution with Bearer token auth and automatic failover. Every hop authenticated: HTTP → relay → SSH → WireGuard → target.

IA.L2-3.5.2 · AC.L2-3.1.1

Idempotent server hardening

One script: SSH lockdown, fail2ban, sysctl tuning, audit logging, VPN enrollment, monitoring registration. Repeatable on every server, safe to re-run.

CM.L2-3.4.3 · SI.L2-3.14.1

Centralized monitoring

UptimeKuma, Graylog SIEM, Wazuh XDR, LibreNMS. Alert routing to Discord, Teams, SMTP. Admin dashboard with 16 embedded services.

SI.L2-3.14.6 · AU.L2-3.3.1

In development

Visual workflow builder

Drag-and-drop orchestration for infrastructure workflows. The automation runs today via scripts and relay; the visual layer is next.

Automated CMMC evidence collection

Continuous scanning of all 110 NIST 800-171 controls with auto-generated POA&M. Currently per-engagement; full automation in progress.

Single sign-on

Keycloak OIDC across the entire service mesh. One login authenticates every embedded tool automatically.

Self-healing infrastructure

Automatic remediation for detected failures. Operational for VPN tunnels today; expanding to all services.

Every CMMC control maps to NIST SP 800-171 Rev 2. Format: Family.Level-Section. These are actual controls, not aspirational checkboxes.

Engagement models

Three ways to work together. All open-source. No lock-in.

Every engagement starts with reconnaissance. You get a complete picture of where you stand before anything changes. Pricing is scoped to your environment — not inflated by headcount.

Assessment

One-time engagement

Know exactly where you stand. Full reconnaissance of your environment with confidence-scored findings.

From $2,500

Scoped to environment size

Reconnaissance

Infrastructure mapping — every host, config, firmware

Security gap analysis with confidence scores

Compliance posture (CMMC, NIST, HIPAA)

Vendor lock-in assessment & migration paths

5W1H documentation of all findings

Deliverables

Executive summary + technical detail report

Prioritized remediation roadmap

Cost comparison: current vs. open-source alternatives

Ongoing monitoring

Implementation

AI agent deployment

No changes made. Intelligence gathering only. You decide what happens next.

Most common

Managed Infrastructure

Monthly engagement

Your infrastructure runs on open-source tools you own. I manage it, monitor it, and keep it hardened.

From $2,500 /mo

Scoped to node count + complexity

Everything in Assessment, plus:

24/7 monitoring — UptimeKuma, Graylog, Wazuh

Encrypted mesh VPN (WireGuard)

Patch management & vulnerability remediation

Backup verification & disaster recovery

Firewall management (iptables, not UFW)

DNS management (Pi-hole + Cloudflare)

SSL certificate lifecycle

Incident response with triage + remediation

AI-assisted operations — relay triad, automated checks

Deliverables

Admin dashboard — your services, live status, one pane

Monthly reporting with 5W1H audit trail

Quarterly business review

CMMC evidence packages

Compliance audit preparation

You own every tool, every config, every credential. If you leave, you take it all with you.

Compliance + Security

Monthly engagement

Full infrastructure management with continuous CMMC/NIST compliance. For organizations pursuing or maintaining certification.

From $5,000 /mo

Scoped to compliance framework + environment

Everything in Managed, plus:

CMMC Level 2 control mapping — 110 NIST 800-171 controls

Continuous compliance monitoring per control family

POA&M generation & remediation tracking

SSP (System Security Plan) development

SIEM tuning & log retention compliance

Access control enforcement & audit

Security awareness training coordination

Incident response plan & tabletop exercises

vCTO advisory — 4hrs/month

Deliverables

CMMC evidence packages per assessment domain

Pre-audit readiness reviews

Full 5W1H change documentation — auditor-ready

Built for defense contractors, government subs, and regulated industries. CMMC, NIST, HIPAA, FedRAMP alignment.

Project engagements

Migrations, buildouts, and one-time implementations. Fixed-price or time-and-materials.

VMware → Proxmox migration Network redesign VPN deployment SIEM implementation Server hardening DR planning

Zachary Ross

Frederick, MD · Remote available

Fortune 500 to defense contractors to small businesses. I've built infrastructure at every scale, and I've watched vendors extract maximum profit from every one of them.

DATAROSS is not a traditional MSP. No sales team, no account managers, no overhead to pass along.

0 years

building, breaking, and rebuilding infrastructure

Digital Counsel

18 AI agents governing every CMMC domain

♕

SOLOMON

Master Architect

⚔

NEHEMIAH

Security · Firewalls

☷

DANIEL

Audit · Logging

◉

SAMUEL

Uptime · Monitoring

⚙

BEZALEL

Automation · AI Relay

⚠

GIDEON

Incident Response

+ 12 more governing Configuration, Identity, DNS, Backup, Patching, Risk, Training, Comms, Capacity, Certificates, Media, and DR

One engineer directing eighteen agents across seventy-five nodes. The AI doesn't replace the thinking — it multiplies the reach.

Matthew 10:8

What you receive freely, give freely. Technology should serve people, not create dependency.

Proverbs 27:6

Sometimes the honest answer is "don't change anything." You'll hear what you need to hear.

Galatians 6:2

Technology should be invisible when it works. You focus on your work; the complexity is handled.

Philippians 2:3-4

Your interests come first — even when that means less revenue. Trust outlasts any transaction.

Your infrastructure is either working for you or costing you.

You used to buy your software. Now you rent it — at 5× the price.

These are real numbers from real projects.

Your problem gets the same process every time.

Your infrastructure runs on tools you can inspect, modify, and take with you.

This isn't a pitch. This is what's running right now.

Three ways to work together. All open-source. No lock-in.

You know if this applies to you.