Infrastructure you own. Compliance you can prove.
When your VMware renewal tripled, when an audit asks for evidence you don't have, when a vendor charges per device for tools that should be free — those are solvable problems. Open-source foundations. Documented outcomes. Nothing on this page you can't check.
VMware exit estimator
2026 Broadcom list · editable to your quote— and you own the platform outright.
You used to buy your software. Now you rent it — at a steep markup.
Perpetual licenses were eliminated in 2024; the model is subscription-only, billed per physical core instead of per CPU. Then the floor moved. A 16-core-per-socket minimum was followed by a 72-core minimum on new orders — so a single small server is billed for 72 cores whether it has them or not.
The pattern isn't unique to VMware. It's the playbook: acquire, consolidate into bundles, raise the floor, penalize late renewals. Your infrastructure shouldn't be a hostage to someone else's quarterly targets.
The exit isn't theoretical. The same workloads run on open-source platforms with equivalent capability — and the licensing leverage disappears, because there's no license to hold over you.
Pricing and minimums per independent 2026 Broadcom licensing analyses. Verify your own figures with a reseller quote — or model them above.
Real numbers from real projects.
60+ VMs off VMware to Proxmox. Zero downtime.
After Broadcom's acquisition tripled their renewal, every virtual machine was migrated to an open-source hypervisor with equivalent capability. Production never went offline.
Insider incident: contained, preserved, restored — 48 hours.
An insider threat was identified and contained. Forensic evidence was preserved with full chain-of-custody for legal proceedings, affected systems were remediated, and monitoring was put in place to prevent recurrence.
Network rebuilt for 300+ users. Zero unplanned outages since.
A 100GbE backbone with proper security segmentation and built-in redundancy — designed to fail gracefully, so when hardware breaks, the network routes around it.
Hybrid inference: local for routine, cloud for complex.
Data stays on owned hardware. Routine tasks run locally on GPUs; complex work escalates to cloud APIs only when needed. Cost drops, privacy improves, capability holds.
The same disciplined sequence, every time.
Reconnaissance
Before anything changes, your environment is mapped on the wire — every config, every firmware version, every gap. Missing data gets a script written to find it. Nothing is assumed.
Assessment
Every finding carries a confidence score. Where compliance applies — CMMC, NIST,
FIPS — each control maps to evidence pulled from your actual systems.
Phased execution
Changes ship in phases with a rollback path at each step. One thing changes, gets verified, then the next. Every action is logged: who, what, when, where, why, how.
Verification & handoff
You receive complete documentation of what changed and why — the actual commands, configs, and before/after state. Anyone you hand it to picks up exactly where it left off.
Tools you can inspect, modify, and take with you.
Not a pitch. What's running right now.
SC.L2-3.13.2
SI.L2-3.14.1
AU.L2-3.3.1
Control references follow NIST SP 800-171 Rev 2, formatted Family.Level-Section. These are implemented controls, not aspirational checkboxes.
Three ways to work together. All open-source. No lock-in.
Assessment
Know exactly where you stand. Full reconnaissance with confidence-scored findings.
- Reconnaissance
- Infrastructure mapping — every host, config, firmware
- Security gap analysis with confidence scores
- Compliance posture (CMMC, NIST, HIPAA)
- Lock-in assessment & migration paths
- You receive
- Executive summary + technical detail
- Prioritized remediation roadmap
- Cost comparison: current vs. open-source
No changes made. Intelligence only — you decide what happens next.
Managed Infrastructure
Your infrastructure runs on open-source tools you own. I manage, monitor, and keep it hardened.
- Everything in Assessment, plus
- 24/7 monitoring — UptimeKuma, Graylog, Wazuh
- Encrypted mesh VPN (WireGuard)
- Patch & vulnerability management
- Backup verification & disaster recovery
- Firewall management (iptables)
- DNS, SSL lifecycle, incident response
- You receive
- Live admin dashboard — your services, one pane
- Monthly reporting with full audit trail
- Quarterly business review
You own every tool, config, and credential. Leave any time and take it all with you.
Compliance + Security
Full management with continuous CMMC / NIST compliance — for organizations pursuing or holding certification.
- Everything in Managed, plus
- CMMC Level 2 mapping — all 110 NIST 800-171 controls
- Continuous compliance monitoring by family
- POA&M generation & tracking
- System Security Plan (SSP) development
- SIEM tuning & log-retention compliance
- IR plan & tabletop exercises
- vCTO advisory — 4 hrs / month
- You receive
- CMMC evidence packages per domain
- Pre-audit readiness reviews
- Auditor-ready change documentation
Built for defense contractors, government subs, and regulated industries.
All pricing is scoped after reconnaissance — you'll know exactly what you're paying for and why. Project work (VMware migrations, network redesigns, SIEM builds, DR planning) is quoted per engagement.
One engineer, augmented — not an org chart you pay for.
Zachary Ross
Fortune 500 to defense contractors to small businesses — I've built infrastructure at every scale, and watched vendors extract maximum margin from each one.
DATAROSS isn't a traditional MSP. No sales team, no account managers, no overhead to pass along in your invoice.
AI-augmented operations
Routine operational work — control checks, log triage, health verification, change logging — runs through a private fleet of AI agents, each scoped to one compliance domain and executing against the live mesh with authenticated, audited access.
The AI doesn't replace the judgment. It multiplies the reach — so a single accountable engineer can run an operation that would otherwise need a team.
The agent roster (named framework)
Give freely
What you receive freely, give freely. Technology should serve people, not manufacture dependency.
Matthew 10:8Honest counsel
Sometimes the right answer is "change nothing." You'll hear what you need to, not what closes a deal.
Proverbs 27:6Invisible when it works
Good infrastructure disappears. You focus on your work; the complexity is carried for you.
Galatians 6:2Your interests first
Recommendations serve your outcome, even when that means less revenue. Trust outlasts any transaction.
Philippians 2:3-4You already know if this applies to you.
Direct line
Self-hosted & verifiable
Encrypted mesh, no third-party dependencies, full sovereignty. Every claim on this page is checkable — start with the live status page.