How We Work

Startups and growing web businesses:

Inception and growth periods are when database expertise is absolutely
crucial. There are core areas that can cost you tremendous amounts of
rework and money if you do not manage them as early as possible. We know
that time and money are rare resources in a startup environment and can
focus on the core components required for scale, flexibility and performance
as you grow. You don’t want to pay the salary of a full-time DBA if you can
avoid it and you don’t have to! Having been through these growth phases
numerous times, we can walk you through them at a fraction of the cost you
might expect.

How we integrate with your team:

There are two types of DBA work. First is the day to day work of building,
monitoring, backing up and maintaining your database infrastructure. These
are core tasks that an outsourcer can provide well. They leverage benefits of
scale, well-tested and honed processes and collective years of experience.
The second is the marriage of application and database – the logical and
physical modeling of your data, scaling based on your data and access
patterns, SQL and server tuning and long-term growth and availability
planning. To do this well, you need a long-term partner who knows your
business, your architecture and your strategy, and who has the time to focus
on them.

How we work with you:

When time allows, we are happy to take on project work at an hourly basis, but where we shine is in our long-term relationships. We encourage clients to work with us on a retainer-basis, starting at 12 hours per month with a discount on any hours over that. Retainer clients get priority for scheduling work and gain on-call support as well. Retainer clients can expect the following from us:

• Setup of our monitoring and trending tools.
• Proactive performance monitoring.
• Weekly status reports on system health.
• Quarterly detailed capacity reports.
• Email and IM access to your development and operations team for design, questions and review.
• Weekly planning calls and monthly on-site available at your request and need.
• Design, implementation and support of infrastructure, databases and data models.
• Full documentation of all processes to enable your teams to take on management of your database infrastructure.
• Customized coding for operational tools and processes.