Engagement Model
How an Aethon Core engagement actually works
What each stage involves, what we ask from you, what you get, and what happens if things go off track. Enterprise buyers are buying a relationship — this is what ours looks like.
The engagement stages
Six stages from first call to long-term operations
Not every client goes through all six — a professional services engagement might stop at stage three. The stages are designed to give you a clear exit point at each step.
We talk about your current environment, what's not working, and what you're trying to achieve. We'll tell you honestly at the end of the call whether there's a fit — including if there isn't. We don't pass you to a sales team that pitches regardless of fit.
What we ask from you
- Current environment size and complexity
- What's driving the evaluation — a specific incident, a renewal, a compliance deadline?
- Who the decision-makers are and what their criteria look like
What you get
- A direct answer on whether our services are a good match
- If there's a fit: a recommended starting point (assessment, pilot, or full engagement)
- If there isn't: honest advice on what direction might be better
Before we propose anything, we look at your actual environment. We run an Infrastructure Assessment (or Security Posture Assessment, depending on what's relevant) and give you a written report with findings and a prioritized action plan. This is a paid fixed-scope project — the report is yours regardless of whether you proceed.
What we ask from you
- Read access to architecture diagrams or existing documentation
- 2–3 hours of your IT team's time across the assessment period
- Access credentials for a read-only cloud audit (if applicable)
What you get
- Written findings ranked by risk and business impact
- Prioritized action plan with a recommended sequence
- Honest assessment of what Aethon Core changes versus what it doesn't
- If we find something critical, we'll flag it immediately — not hold it for the report
Based on the assessment findings, we scope an engagement. You get a Statement of Work with defined deliverables, a timeline, acceptance criteria, and a fixed price. We don't start work without a signed SOW. Changes to scope are handled through a formal change request — no scope creep, no surprise invoices.
What we ask from you
- Review of the draft SOW with your team
- Sign-off from the right stakeholders before we proceed
What you get
- Fixed-price or capped T&M engagement — no billing surprises
- Named deliverables with acceptance criteria you sign off on
- Defined escalation path if the engagement goes off track
- Multi-year discount if we're structuring a long-term relationship
Onboarding
4–8 weeks for most environments
Platform deployment, integration with your existing tools, and handover to your team. We document everything as we go — not after the fact. Your team should be able to operate the environment independently after onboarding. We track knowledge transfer throughout, not just at the end.
What we ask from you
- A dedicated technical point of contact on your side
- Scheduled blocks of your IT team's time for integration work and training
- Change management approval for environment changes
What you get
- Platform deployed and integrated in your environment
- Your team trained on day-to-day operations and escalation procedures
- Written runbooks for common operations and incident response
- Access to the client portal for request tracking and reporting
For managed services clients: 24/7 monitoring, incident response, and a structured reporting cadence. You get a named service delivery manager, defined SLAs written into the contract, and a monthly business review. We don't disappear between incidents.
What we ask from you
- A 24/7 escalation contact on your side for P1 incidents
- Attendance at monthly and quarterly business reviews
- Advance notice of major planned changes to your environment
What you get
- Weekly infrastructure health summaries
- Monthly SLA scorecard, capacity report, and cost optimization recommendations
- Quarterly executive business review with roadmap planning
- Written post-incident review within 48 hours of any P1/P2 incident
Most clients add products or expand tier coverage over time as their environment grows. We track your node count and flag you in advance before you approach your tier limit — you'll never hit a capacity wall without warning. Adding a product or upgrading a tier is handled without redeployment.
What we ask from you
- Input on your infrastructure roadmap and expected growth
- Early notice of major initiatives (M&A, new regions, compliance deadlines)
What you get
- Advance warning before you hit tier or capacity limits
- No migration or redeployment when adding products or upgrading
- Multi-year pricing locked in at the time of your original agreement
- A single account team regardless of how much your engagement expands
Contract basics
The commercial terms in plain language
These are the things enterprise procurement teams usually ask about. If you have questions not covered here, ask during the discovery call.
| Minimum term | Annual for platform; month-to-month after 3-month initial term for managed services |
| Multi-year discounts | 8% off for 2-year, 14% off for 3-year agreements |
| Scope changes | All changes handled via formal change request — no undocumented scope creep |
| SLA remedies | SLA misses result in service credits written into the contract, not goodwill gestures |
| Exit | We provide a data export and offboarding handover at end of term — your data is always yours |
| Currency | USD by default; CAD available on request for Canadian clients |
When things go wrong
How we handle incidents and SLA misses
Incident response
P1 incidents are responded to within 15 minutes (Enterprise Plus) or 1–8 hours depending on tier. A named engineer works the problem. You get status updates every 30 minutes until resolved, without having to ask.
Post-incident review
Every P1 and P2 incident results in a written post-incident review delivered within 48 hours. It covers what happened, why it happened, what we changed, and what prevents recurrence. This is contractual, not optional.
SLA misses
SLA credits are written into the contract with defined multipliers based on severity. They're applied automatically to your next invoice — you don't have to request them. Repeated misses against the same SLA trigger an escalation review.
Ready to start with a discovery call?
45 minutes. We tell you honestly whether there's a fit. No pitch if there isn't.