Also, seriously, are you as a senior analyst, implying that the greatest correlation to a databases’ importance to a business the amount of disk it uses? Are you also suggesting that maintaining a database system is purely a function of it’s size? This illustrates the sheer naivety of the analyst. Noel, to put it simply, the ability of a company to handle anything is a direct function of the quality of its employees and the maturity of it’s processes. Not it’s headcount.

Go read this article from March 2007.
http://www.pythian.com/blogs/404/working-as-an-onsite-dba-together-with-pythian

Some numbers have changed, it is not 23 Senior DBAs it is 60+, It is not 150K past resolutions it is now 210K. Nothing else has changed. Following the sun with service is actually even better now as well with Pythian European office now online and a Dubai office as well.

You know what… personally my job is easier than 15 months ago since I wrote that article. That is a big plus for me a bigger plus for all Pythian’s customers. Less time on reactive/emergency work more time for proactive and project work.

Have Fun.

Paul

If their processes are not streamlined and efficient, the cost savings are not real because you are not really getting a DBA expert…you are only getting an off-site database monitoring service with some automated report generation and very basic troubleshooting.

While having the right processes in place is an absolute must for any business to function effectively, you can’t make your DBA’s going beyond “some automated report generation and very basic troubleshooting” simply by applying the processes. For that you need first-class production engineers with deep technical knowledge in the subject area. It’s people who actually go beyond and further one extra mile… or two.

The smaller pure-play vendors tend to focus solely on remote database administration, and may best suit databases less than 500 GB in size, according to Forrester Research analyst Noel Yuhanna. The larger companies, meanwhile, can support databases into terabytes, he added.

This is absolute nonsense! Plus, who counts Gigabytes these days? I can’t put it better than Paul did — “Some of the systems we manage have downtime costs in the six figures per hour range, so this is the standard of care that we have implemented as a result.”

“Organizations should have well-defined, documented databases and applications before considering (remote database administration),” Yuhanna said. “You don’t expect remote DBA providers to fix your car if the car is already broken. Ensure that the car is running properly with zero issues—it’s documented on steps to perform if there are issues—and how it integrates with other databases and applications.”

Oh boy… if only Noel Yuhanna knew in what state some companies are coming on board and how much success we have there, he would completely change his mind!
Fixing broken cars — this is what we do all the time for the new clients — they often come with and because of their critical unresolvable problems! They are looking for a champion, a hero to save them *now* and keep afloat in the future.
It’s a job of a production engineer to fix, optimize and run the car as efficient as possible. Indeed very few people fix and service their cars themselves these days.

And I fully agree with Paul — remote DBA service providers are not all alike. You do want to choose a good mechanic to service your car and it’s even more true in remote DBA services.

Paul, indeed, it’s an interesting to see what’s been extracted from this interview. Thanks for sharing that!