Single Point of Contact

Each client of The DBA Shoppe is assigned a Certified DBA Consultant (DBAC). The client’s assigned DBAC provides a single point of contact for all database related questions, concerns and reporting.

DBA Coverage

DBACs are fully covered by the DBA Consultant Colleague backup process in place at The DBA Shoppe. A client is always supported by primary and backup DBACs.

Access from Anywhere

Each DBAC has remote access via The DBA Shoppe office VPN from their workspace, via The DBA Shoppe employee portal VPN from out of office wired and via wireless cell connectivity on every laptop from everywhere.

Team

Each assigned DBAC is supported by the entire team of certified DBACs at The DBA Shoppe via ad hoc assistance and structured Client Status Update meetings. The environment at The DBA Shoppe is one of collaboration and sharing of intellectual capital. This environment has an established history of producing rapid high quality results for support of a client’s database administration plan.

Certification

The DBA Shoppe employs a highly skilled team of experienced database administrators in Database Administrator Consultant roles, or DBAC roles. All DBACs are required to be certified database administrators in at least one of the industry standard Oracle, Microsoft or IBM database management system platforms.

Best Practices

The delivery of high-quality professional database administration demands that best practices be employed at both general and vendor specific levels. General best practices for database administration include planning (capacity, backup and recovery, security), scheduled testing, tuning and validation of database health and path forward. Vendor specific best practices deal with tasks, procedures and reporting peculiar to a given database platform or vendor and are equally important when establishing and maintaining an effective database administration plan.

Business Acumen

It is critical that your DBA is able to communicate with all levels and roles of personnel to understand the goals and issues and to move the database plan in the correct direction for your business. The DBA Shoppe DBA Consultants have the required business acumen to translate the technical to business and always keep the ‘bigger picture’ in mind when approaching the planning and maintenance of a client’s database plan.

Reporting

Regular and thorough reporting has been paramount to the success of The DBA Shoppe and the satisfaction of its clients. We provide regular technical and management reports to the client either in writing, in person or both. These reports allow decision makers and staff to keep abreast of the status of their database plan and any issues that have been or should be addressed.

Remote Access

Remote access to a client’s database is achieved as follows:

• via client VPN account if available and desired
• via privately owned and The DBA Shoppe managed Client Comms Box installed on the client network which handles everything from firewall security to virus checking to database connectivity

The status of the remote access is monitored constantly and alerts are issued to both the assigned DBA Consultant and the client so that any connectivity issues can be addressed and corrected immediately.

Operational DBA Services (oDBA™ Services)

oDBA™ services include:

• Day-to-day activities required to keep Oracle, DB2 or SQL Server databases up and running
• Regular health and status checks, monitors and system reports
• Working with client staff to manage day-to-day issues
• Implementation of rigorous backup, security and tuning plans

Project DBA Services (pDBA™ Services)

pDBA™ services include:

• Identifying database project requirements
• Working with Project Management to determine best path forward for the project
• Working closely with client staff to complete project work quickly, efficiently, thoroughly and professionally

Consultative DBA Services (cDBA™ Services)

cDBA™ services include:

• Working with all stakeholders to determine scope and objectives
• Studies to determine feasibility and supportability of objectives
• Understanding environment and objectives
• Providing recommendations on how to achieve objectives
• Working with senior management to clarify real costs and required investment to attain the objectives
• Advising management and staff on a plan and best path forward

Database Environment Assessments

A Database Environment Analysis and Recommendations (DEAR™) Report is included in the annual fee for any new Operational DBA client. The DEAR Report health assessment will give any current support staff and management a clear view to the state of their databases and their database management plan including a best practices analysis and a brief security and tuning audit.

The DBA Shoppe Guarantee

All of our work carries The DBA Shoppe Guarantee. It is our promise that we will ensure your complete satisfaction by fulfilling all availability and performance targets whether it be oDBA™, pDBA™ or cDBA™ work.

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