> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.aiaxoniq.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Onboarding: self-hosted

> What is available today if aiAxonIQ runs in your own environment, what these docs cover, and what comes with the deployment instead.

Some aiAxonIQ deployments run in the customer's own environment rather than as
a hosted service. If yours is one, this page is what changes for you.

<Warning>
  **Self-hosting is not self-service today.** There is no public download, no
  published installer and no "run this to stand up aiAxonIQ" guide in this
  documentation. A self-hosted deployment is arranged with your account
  contact, and the operational material — installation, upgrade, backup,
  restore and monitoring of the platform itself — is delivered **with the
  deployment**, versioned against the exact release you are running.

  That is deliberate rather than an omission. Operational procedures that drift
  from the release they describe are worse than no procedures, and a public
  page cannot be pinned to your version.
</Warning>

## What is different for you

Almost nothing about using the product. Everything in this documentation
applies — the same API, the same query syntax, the same instrumentation, the
same guides. Three things change:

<Steps>
  <Step title="Your endpoint is your own domain">
    Wherever these pages write `$OIQ_ENDPOINT`, yours is on your domain rather
    than a hosted one. **Get Started** in your dashboard shows the correct value
    for your deployment — it is the authority, because no static page can know
    it.

    See [Ingest endpoints](/send-data/endpoints).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Your operator controls plan features and limits">
    Feature entitlements, retention and volume allowances are set by whoever
    runs your deployment rather than by a subscription. A `403 UPGRADE_REQUIRED`
    is a conversation with them, not with billing. See
    [Plan limits](/concepts/limits).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Some capabilities depend on your configuration">
    Email delivery, single sign-on and outbound webhook notifications are each
    configured per deployment. If one is not working, it is usually not
    configured rather than broken — see [Below](#things-that-depend-on-your-deployment).
  </Step>
</Steps>

## What runs

A self-hosted deployment is a container stack: the ingest receiver, the API,
the dashboard, the processing workers, the AI service, and the data stores
behind them — an analytical store for telemetry, a search index for log
full-text, a relational control plane, a cache and a vector store.

The architecture is identical to the hosted service, which is why every page in
[Concepts](/concepts/architecture) applies to you unchanged.

<Note>
  **Kubernetes manifests exist but are not the deployed shape.** Deployments
  today are container-orchestrated on hosts you provide. If a cluster
  deployment is a requirement for you, raise it with your account contact
  rather than assuming from the presence of manifests.
</Note>

## Things that depend on your deployment

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Email — invitations, verification, password resets, one-time codes" icon="envelope">
    All of these need an SMTP provider configured. Without one they fail with
    an explicit error rather than appearing to succeed, which is the correct
    behaviour and is still confusing if you do not know to look.

    If invitations are not arriving, this is the first thing to check with your
    operator.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Single sign-on" icon="fingerprint">
    SAML is configured per deployment. The status endpoint reports whether it
    is enabled, which is how a sign-in page decides whether to offer it. See
    [Single sign-on](/get-started/sso).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Outbound webhook notifications" icon="link">
    The generic outbound webhook channel is disabled by default and gated
    behind a flag your operator controls. Slack, PagerDuty, Teams, OpsGenie and
    email are unaffected. See [Alerting](/guides/alerts/overview).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="OTLP over gRPC" icon="tower-broadcast">
    Reachable only where your reverse proxy has been configured to carry it.
    OTLP over HTTP works everywhere and is the better default in most networks
    anyway. See [Exporters](/send-data/otel/exporters#otlp-over-http-or-grpc).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Backup and restore" icon="database">
    Scheduled backups of the control plane and telemetry stores are part of the
    deployment, and the procedure for verifying and restoring them ships with
    it, matched to your release.

    **Ask your operator when a restore was last rehearsed.** A backup that has
    never been restored is a hypothesis. This is the single most valuable
    question on this page.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Getting telemetry in

Identical to every other deployment, with your own endpoint:

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Installation overview" icon="download" href="/send-data/overview">
    Collector or direct, and which platform guide to open.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Docker" icon="docker" href="/onboarding/docker">
    Containers on one or a few hosts.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Kubernetes" icon="dharmachakra" href="/onboarding/kubernetes">
    A cluster, a DaemonSet and a gateway.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Questions for your operator

Worth asking early, because each has a different answer per deployment and each
changes what you should do:

1. **What is my ingest endpoint, and does it carry gRPC as well as HTTP?**
2. **Is email configured?** Invitations, resets and one-time codes all depend
   on it.
3. **Is single sign-on configured?**
4. **What is my retention window, and what are my volume allowances?**
5. **When was a restore last rehearsed?**
6. **How do I request an upgrade, and what is the current version?**

## Next

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Platform architecture" icon="sitemap" href="/concepts/architecture">
    What runs, and why there are four stores.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Ingest endpoints" icon="list" href="/send-data/endpoints">
    Paths, status codes and limits.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Enterprise onboarding" icon="building-columns" href="/onboarding/enterprise">
    Rolling out across teams.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>