What are remote DBA services?
Remote DBA service is the practice of managing a database from, well, a remote location. Typically a remote DBA firm will have a Servicedesk function from which all services are performed.
It should go without saying that that technical people working in the operation centers are composed of diverse professionals; experts in their field with broad niche knowledge to ensure their customers get answers when they need them.
Remote DBAs should log in to your database and systems per your security requirements to perform selected duties – some reactively, some proactively, some as part of agreed-upon projects. Ideally, the remote DBA services firm will have an issue tracking system that transparently records all work performed on your databases, and they should have processes that ensure your issues and projects are handed off cleanly when they need to be worked at odd hours or weekends. Likewise, you should have a single point of contact with your remote DBA firm; when workers are not physically near each other, clear communication is more critical than ever.
A remote DBA services firm should wield outstanding monitoring and tools. Any DBA’s goal should be smooth, uninterrupted system performance and reliable, predictive monitoring (with the ability to quickly respond) is the most critical tool in the DBA’s kit.
Finally, a remote DBA services firm should be flexible. If you had a full-time person or an on-site consultant, they would work on what you want, when you want, right? Just because you use a team of DBAs who aren’t local to your office doesn’t mean you should compromise on flexibility.
Why should you use remote DBA?
If you already have a DBA staff, wouldn’t they love to hand the on-call pager off to a trusted group of technical experts, available to them day or night? On holidays? When they want to go on vacation? Wouldn’t they love to focus on projects specific to your organization instead of dealing with generic issues like backups and monitoring? Wouldn’t they love to have a team of fellow DBAs available to them day or night to collaborate with, pass off a task when they’re overloaded, or ask a question about a specific feature?
If you don’t have a DBA staff, why would you spend precious budget on a full time resource you may not be able to keep busy, interested, or happy? Why wouldn’t you take advantage of an organization that provides access to experts in performance tuning, backup and recovery, replication, or a host of other database focus areas for a fraction of the cost of a full-time resource that you don’t really need?
Why Blue Gecko remote DBA services?
Because we really are different. We don’t cut corners in favor of short term profits. Our customers stay with us for years because we strive to make their systems work better and better for less and less.
Everything we do centers around a superior remote DBA experience. We constantly strive to improve by eliminating bottlenecks, roadblocks, and imperfections in our delivery and service model. How can we have your back if we’re not paying attention to what we’re doing?
People, process, and tools
We hire senior, expert people. We don’t outsource DBA support to someone else. You will work with the same people all the time, including a product manager who will be responsible for your account; you’ll have one place to go when you have questions.
Because we are not a consulting firm that also does remote DBA, we focus on processes that make remote DBA work well. We handle incident tracking, project management, monitoring response, and constantly solicit customer feedback. From the moment we deploy your services, you will see the difference our process makes in delivering superior DBA service.
It’s all about the tools. We pour piles of development R&D into our services. If we can detect potential issues before they become a problem, then our customers have smoother-running systems, and we don’t have to spend time working on preventable problems. We also focus heavily on our remote access methods and documentation; with hundreds of different customers, we need to be able to securely and efficiently access customer systems without asking our customers to alter their security practices.
Service Level Agreements.
Our SLA’s cover even the most demanding business requirement, and we are flexible about them.
We will make them suite you needs and that across time zones and borders – 24 hours a day.
Our service catalogs can be as extensive as you require and we will adopt the services you need.
You are the customer and we acknowledge that.
Flexible pricing models
Our pricing model is flexible.
Both for smaller national and large global corporations, whatever their requirement would be, we can do time/material, fixed pricing, service contracts or even combination of each and every model.
Call Blue Gecko today and learn how we can help your organization.