Internal Capability Brief
Argus  ·  Network Assessment Platform

Autonomous
Network Assessment.

Argus is a purpose-built network discovery and security assessment platform developed for C Spire Business’s SLED and enterprise market. It enables a Senior Systems Engineer to conduct a comprehensive network assessment at a customer site without requiring on-site presence — the customer’s only action is plugging in a small device.

Operator Login
argus.thespis377.com
02
The Model Shift
Traditional Assessment
On-site labor
16 hours per engagement — travel, setup, manual config review, and documentation
Time to findings
3–5 business days from scheduling to report delivery
Methodology
Engineer-dependent — varies by individual, experience, and available time
Scalability
Constrained by engineer availability and travel logistics
Tooling cost
Per-device or per-node licensing for commercial discovery platforms
The Argus Model
On-site labor
Zero — Pi ships to site; customer plugs in one cable
Time to findings
Under 24 hours from Pi plug-in to full report
Methodology
Identical every engagement — automated audit against official Cisco hardening guides
Scalability
Fleet-based — one orchestrator manages unlimited simultaneous deployments
Tooling cost
~$100 per Pi — no licensing, no per-device fees, no subscription
03
Platform Metrics — Limited Deployment Baseline
0
Engagements
Completed
787
Devices
Discovered
1537
Security Findings
Identified
0
Labor Hours
Displaced
Displacement calculation: 16-hour traditional assessment (on-site travel + manual config review + documentation) minus 2-hour Argus review cycle (operator findings review and report delivery) = 14 hours saved per completed run.  ·  Figures represent current operational baseline in limited deployment. Projections at scale appear in Slide 04.
04
Managed Service Potential
One-Time Assessment Fee
$2,500 – $5,000
per engagement
Priced by site complexity and customer segment. Rural SLED customers toward the lower end; mid-size municipal and enterprise customers toward the upper end. Assessment creates the pipeline entry point and surfaces the recurring service opportunity.
Monthly Recurring — Managed Service
$500 – $1,000
per managed site, per month
Converts the one-time assessment into a continuous managed engagement: quarterly discovery runs, ongoing findings monitoring, and annual refresh reporting. Priced by site complexity, not device count.
ARR Projection — Recurring Service Only
10 managed sites
$5,000 – $10,000 / mo
$60K – $120K ARR
25 managed sites
$12,500 – $25,000 / mo
$150K – $300K ARR
50 managed sites
$25,000 – $50,000 / mo
$300K – $600K ARR

Projections are recurring service revenue only and exclude one-time assessment fees. Each new managed site also generates an initial assessment fee of $2,500–$5,000. At 50 sites the cumulative assessment revenue alone represents $125K–$250K in additional top-line before the first renewal cycle.

05
Competitive Position
No vendor
tooling licenses.
The platform runs on a $100 Raspberry Pi and open-source libraries. No Auvik. No SolarWinds. No per-node or per-device licensing model. The marginal cost of the next customer engagement is the cost of a Pi.
No on-site
engineer.
The Pi does the work. Discovery, config collection, and security audit run autonomously — the operator never leaves the desk. Competitors bidding traditional professional services cannot remove this cost; it is structural to their model.
No per-device
agent.
Discovery is passive — CDP/LLDP and SSH only. No software is installed on customer devices. No agents to deploy, license, maintain, or remove at engagement close. Zero customer IT change control required.
06
Deployment Model
1
Provision & Ship
15-minute bench provisioning. Pi receives a WireGuard VPN key and encrypted credential vault. Ships to customer in a standard mailer.
2
Customer Plugs In
One PoE switch port. No configuration, no software, no IT involvement. Argus boots, joins the network, and phones home over WireGuard.
3
Autonomous Discovery
CDP/LLDP neighbor walk, SSH config collection, Cisco hardening audit, ARP/MAC endpoint inventory — complete in minutes to hours depending on network size.
4
Findings & Reports
Results sync to the cloud dashboard. Operator reviews findings, exports reports, and schedules follow-on runs — all remotely. Pi can remain on-site for continuous monitoring.
Customer Data & Liability Controls
✓ Network credentials never stored in the cloud database
✓ On-device encrypted vault — key bound to Pi hardware serial
✓ All Pi traffic over WireGuard VPN — no public exposure
✓ Signed beacon check-ins with DNS fallback
✓ TLS on all public endpoints — Let's Encrypt, HSTS enforced
✓ Role-based access control with bcrypt authentication