Managed Infrastructure Services
Productized databases, streaming, search, observability, and delivery infrastructure operated by Assistance
Assistance managed infrastructure is a productized operations layer for teams that need reliable data and platform services without building a dedicated operations team for every component. We run the service, keep it observable, maintain the backup and recovery posture, and coordinate changes through an agreed support model.
The goal is not another tutorial about how to run PostgreSQL, Kafka, or OpenSearch yourself. The goal is a clear operating contract: what service you receive, who owns each responsibility, how onboarding works, and when to use each managed product.
Managed products#
What is included#
Every managed infrastructure engagement starts with an agreed service boundary. Within that boundary, Assistance normally provides:
| Operating area | Included service responsibility |
|---|---|
| Provisioning | Architecture sizing, environment setup, network placement, secure defaults, and documented connection details |
| Operations | Health monitoring, patch planning, version lifecycle guidance, maintenance windows, and capacity review |
| Reliability | High-availability design where required, backup policies, restore validation, runbooks, and incident response |
| Security | TLS, encryption options, access control, credential rotation support, audit logging, and vulnerability review where applicable |
| Observability | Service dashboards, alerts, escalation routing, usage metrics, and operational notes for support handoff |
| Change management | Planned changes, upgrade windows, rollback plans, and communication before customer-impacting work |
| Support | Scoped support channels, severity definitions, response expectations, and escalation paths |
Cloud provider charges, software licenses, customer application changes, and application-level data modeling are scoped separately unless explicitly included in the engagement.
Ownership model#
Managed infrastructure works best when both sides know their responsibilities before production traffic arrives.
| Responsibility | Assistance owns | Customer owns |
|---|---|---|
| Service runtime | Platform installation, configuration, upgrades, monitoring, backups, failover procedures | Application compatibility, client libraries, and release timing for application changes |
| Access and secrets | Initial access model, service accounts, rotation procedure, least-privilege recommendations | User approvals, identity source of truth, application secret consumption, internal access reviews |
| Data | Backup/restore process, retention policy implementation, recovery testing when scoped | Data classification, legal retention rules, schema ownership, application-level validation |
| Incidents | Platform triage, infrastructure remediation, service status updates, post-incident notes | Application incident lead, business impact decisions, customer communications unless contracted |
| Cost | Sizing recommendations, utilization review, flat-rate Assistance operations pricing | Cloud/provider spend, traffic growth decisions, retention requirements, business trade-offs |
SLA language is scoped, not generic
Availability targets, response times, exclusions, measurement windows, and recovery objectives are confirmed per service tier and deployment model. We do not apply a blanket uptime promise to systems we have not assessed or do not operate.
Deployment models#
| Model | Best for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Assistance-operated physical servers | Development, CI/CD dependencies, test databases, predictable internal platforms, steady-state workloads | Flat-rate economics and dedicated hardware. Usually not the default for internet-scale production elasticity. |
| Customer cloud account | Production systems that must live inside your AWS, Azure, GCP, or Oracle Cloud tenancy | You keep account ownership and billing. Assistance operates the managed service inside agreed boundaries. |
| Assistance-managed cloud tenancy | Teams that want Assistance to own more of the platform and operations surface | Useful when you need a more complete managed environment instead of one component. |
| Hybrid | Development on Assistance physical servers with production in a cloud account | Common for teams optimizing cost without giving up production cloud services. |
Product selection guide#
| Need | Recommended product |
|---|---|
| Transactional relational data, JSON support, geospatial, extensions | Managed PostgreSQL |
| Existing MySQL/MariaDB application, CMS, commerce, LAMP-style workload | Managed MySQL |
| Flexible document model, catalogs, mobile backend, semi-structured records | Managed MongoDB |
| Cache, sessions, rate limiting, lightweight queues, pub/sub | Managed Redis |
| Event streaming, CDC, integration bus, replayable event log | Managed Kafka |
| Full-text search, log analytics, dashboards over indexed data | Managed OpenSearch |
| Metrics collection, alerting, SLO dashboards, infrastructure visibility | Managed Prometheus |
| Private container image distribution and image governance | Managed Docker Registry |
| Package proxying, private libraries, dependency governance | Managed Artifact Repositories |
Onboarding process#
1. Assessment#
We review workload type, data sensitivity, availability expectations, traffic shape, backup requirements, compliance constraints, existing tooling, and target deployment model.
2. Service design#
We propose the managed product configuration: topology, sizing, retention, backup/recovery approach, network access, identity model, monitoring, and support tier.
3. Build and migrate#
Assistance provisions the service, documents access, configures dashboards and alerts, and supports migration from self-hosted systems or cloud-native managed services when needed.
4. Operate and improve#
After go-live, we operate the platform, review capacity and incidents, schedule maintenance, and recommend improvements when usage or risk changes.
Support and SLA model#
| Support area | Standard expectation |
|---|---|
| Monitoring | Health checks and alerts for managed service components |
| Critical incident response | P1 response targets are agreed in the service order; 15-minute response is available for covered critical services |
| Maintenance | Planned maintenance windows with notice and rollback planning |
| Backups | Retention, recovery point, and recovery time objectives defined per product |
| Reviews | Capacity, cost, security, and reliability reviews on the cadence agreed for the plan |
Common adoption scenarios#
Replace fragile self-hosting#
Teams often start with a database or registry installed by one engineer and maintained through tribal knowledge. Assistance turns that component into a managed service with monitoring, backups, documented access, and an escalation path.
Standardize R&D infrastructure#
Development databases, caches, registries, and artifact repositories can run on Assistance-operated physical servers at predictable cost while production stays in your preferred cloud.
Prepare for production growth#
Before traffic increases, we review topology, retention, scaling limits, backup posture, and incident paths so the service has a credible operating model.
Add operational coverage without hiring specialists#
Use Assistance for DBA, streaming, observability, registry, and repository operations while your internal engineers keep application and product ownership.
Getting started#
Start with an infrastructure assessment. We will map the services you need, the operating boundaries, the deployment model, and the SLA/support language required for production.
Request infrastructure assessment →Frequently asked questions#
Is this a replacement for cloud-managed services like RDS, MSK, or OpenSearch Service? Sometimes. We can operate native cloud-managed services in your account, run open-source equivalents on dedicated infrastructure, or use a hybrid model. The right choice depends on cost, control, compliance, and operational requirements.
Who owns the cloud account and infrastructure bill? For customer-account deployments, you own the account and provider bill. Assistance owns the agreed operational responsibilities and charges a flat-rate service fee for that scope.
Can you migrate existing production data? Yes. Migration is scoped by data size, downtime tolerance, compatibility, and rollback needs. We support dump/restore, replication-based migrations, blue/green cutovers, and phased adoption where appropriate.
Do all services include 24/7 support? Monitoring and support are defined by the selected plan. 24/7 response and 15-minute critical response are available for covered production services, but they are not implied for every assessment or development-only environment.
Can we keep application ownership? Yes. Assistance operates the infrastructure product. Your team keeps application architecture, schema decisions, business logic, release timing, and customer-facing product decisions unless a broader service agreement says otherwise.