Key criteria for choosing a strategic database managed service provider (MSP)

Selecting a provider for database managed services provider (MSP) isn't a simple vendor choice. It's a critical decision that affects your stability, performance, and scalability. To move beyond costly, reactive "break-fix" cycles, you need a proactive partner.

Use this checklist to evaluate database managed service providers. A good partner helps you cut costs and adds value as your primary IT partner.

Ten questions to ask when evaluating a database managed service partner

The best-in-class database managed service providers distinguish themselves by offering specialized support and deep operational maturity. View our list of database managed service providers you can evaluate to find the right fit for you. 

Here is the key criteria to look for in a database managed service provider:

1. Proven success reducing database costs 

What to ask: How have you saved customers money? Share case studies or a list of customers you helped achieve significant savings.

What to look for: It is obvious that outsourcing database managed services will save you money. Managing an in-house team of database administrators (DBAs) across multiple technologies is expensive. Look for other ways the database managed service provider will add value, further reduces costs, and delivers more for less.

Pythian ensures our customers reduce their operational database costs by up to 60% every year.

• Harvard Business Publishing saves over $700,000 each year by partnering with Pythian as their database managed service provider (MSP)

• Healthtech company consolidates vendors to achieve significant savings partnering with Pythian as their database managed service provider (MSP)

2. Proactive support that delivers more value for your business

What to ask: How can you optimize our database performance? Share examples where you improved performance. What other support can you provide after you hit these milestones?

What to look for: Does the provider have hard numbers to back up their claims? Can the database managed service provider (MSP) partner with your business for the long term, or do they only offer database management and DBA support?

Pythian’s database managed service delivers proactive performance optimization and recommendations. Before we take over your database management and DBA support, we evaluate your current data estate. We check if your databases are configured correctly, if you should upgrade versions, and where they are slowing you down.

• Fergus turned to Pythian for MySQL database support to fix slow load speed impacting their customer's experience. Read the full story here ->
• Pythian helps Ruby Play Network optimize PostgreSQL for easier scalability. Read full story here ->
• FYI Docs boosts PostgreSQL performance and slashes cloud spend. Read full story here ->

Many of Pythian's global customers have been with us for decades. We start at the foundation by helping businesses save money with better database management. Our service doesn't stop there. We then help customers with: 

• Cloud migrations: We migrate required workloads to the cloud or data platforms to get more value from their data. Pythian helped AllSaints, a global fashion retailer migrate to Google Cloud to boost online conversions and further reduce costs. Wayfair saved decades of code conversion work while Porch reduced their multi-cloud complexity.  
• Analytics: As a data, analytics, and AI service provider, Pythian helps customers get their data where it needs to be and use it—building reports and dashboards. We helped a Canadian Telecommunications Giant build marketing dashboards to increase sales and Schnucks, a midwest grocer develop customer loyalty programs.
• AI services: Pythian provides AI workshops and custom AI development services. We help customers design the right AI strategy and select the highest value AI use case to ensure investments in AI deliver faster ROI. Pythian helped Day & Ross automate document processing—speeding up the data entry required with driver paperwork and QAD improve internal search accuracy with AI. 

Make sure your database managed service provider can serve you as your business grows and evolves.

3. Ensure they deliver 24/7/365 database support with global coverage 

What to ask: Can you deliver 24/7 coverage, including holidays and weekends?

What to look for: Ask for proof of a global delivery team to ensure continuous coverage. Regardless of your time zone, you need a database managed service provider (MSP) who responds when you need them most.

Pythian delivers 24/7 database managed service with global coverage.

4. Rapid response SLAs 

What to ask: What are your response times? Can I see your service level agreement (SLA) and Service Level Objective (SLO) processes, including people and timelines?

What to look for: Look for strict SLAs for response and resolution times, especially for critical P1 issues. A provider needs 24/7 coverage and fast response times. 

5. Database monitoring tooling and support 

What to ask: What database monitoring tools do you provide or support?

What to look for: Good database monitoring tools move beyond simple server health checks to offer deep, proactive insights. Look for a dedicated governance model, regular performance reviews, and real-time dashboard reporting with clear metrics on availability, security, and resource consumption.

Pythian supports our customers' existing monitoring tools. We also offer our own tool that provides a real-time view of database performance and optimization metrics.

6. Ability to automate operations 

What to ask: How can you create greater efficiencies with our database operations? Share examples of where you’ve done this for customers. 

What to look for: The future of DBA is automated. The future of DBA is automated. Look for a service that moves beyond simple scripting to embrace intelligent automation—often referred to as AIOps. This shift reduces human error, ensures consistency across complex environments, and drastically lowers the mean time to resolution (MTTR) for incidents.

A top database managed service provider leverages artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) to move beyond simple thresholds. They should use machine learning to detect anomalies, predict performance bottlenecks before they cause downtime, and automate routine patching and maintenance tasks. 

The right database managed service provider must be able to demonstrate: 

• Predictive anomaly detection: Leveraging machine learning to analyze behavior and predict failures before they occur, rather than simply reacting to threshold breaches.
• Automated remediation: The ability for the system to execute pre-approved, automated workflows (like restarting a service, terminating a blocking session, or scaling resources) without human involvement for routine issues.
• Automated maintenance pipelines: Consistent, automated processes for repetitive, high-value tasks such as patch management, backup validation, and database provisioning across all platforms.
• Cost optimization automation: Tools that automatically adjust cloud resource allocation (scaling up/down) based on real-time workload demand to reduce unnecessary operational expenses.

7. Deep expertise across multiple database, cloud, analytics and AI technologies  

What to ask: What technologies do your teams support? Can you show me a list of credentials and certifications? 

What to look for: Your partner should have certified expertise across all major database types (e.g., Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL) and complex cloud-native services (e.g., AWS RDS/Aurora, Azure Database, Google Cloud SQL). This prevents technology lock-in and allows for hybrid or multi-cloud architecture management.

Pythian has been delivering database managed service for over three decades. We have a large roster of database administrators and consultants across more than 45 database and cloud technologies.

8. Security, compliance, and disaster recovery as standard 

What to ask: How are security, compliance auditing, and disaster recovery planning integrated into your standard service offering, rather than billed as separate projects?

What to look for: Security must be foundational, not an add-on. A reliable database managed service provider integrates protection into every operational process. The database managed service provider should have services that include continuous security patching, vulnerability assessments, access control management, and established protocols for compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.). They must provide a robust, tested disaster recovery (DR) plan with clear recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs). 

When evaluating database managed service providers, you must ensure they can deliver the following essential services: 

• Continuous security patching: Proactive patching of database and operating system vulnerabilities to close security gaps.
• Vulnerability assessments: Regular scanning and auditing of your environment to identify configuration weaknesses and potential exploits.
• Access control management: Enforcing the principle of least privilege, managing user roles, and monitoring privileged access to sensitive data.
• Established compliance protocols: Adherence to and reporting for regulatory mandates (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS).
• Tested disaster recovery (DR) plan: A fully documented, regularly tested plan detailing recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs). This guarantees business continuity.

Pythian ensures that security, compliance and disaster recovery is at the forefront of our database managed service. We conduct security assessments during onboarding to provide recommendations and an optimizations roadmap that we can implement as part of your annual contract.

9. Scalability 

What to ask: How quickly can you adjust resources and staffing to accommodate sudden spikes in demand or sustained organizational expansion without impacting my SLAs?

What to look for: The service model must be fully scalable. Scalability in is not just about adding more cloud hardware; it's about the database managed service providers flexibility to meet unpredictable business demands. 

When evaluating database managed service providers, ensure they can provide: 

• Elastic cloud resource management: Automated or semi-automated processes to scale resources up and down instantly (database compute, storage, memory) to handle seasonal traffic spikes or large marketing campaigns, optimizing performance while controlling costs.
• Expertise scalability: The ability to provide specialized DBAs (e.g., an Oracle Exadata expert) on-demand for specific projects without requiring you to go through a lengthy hiring or contract process.
• Geographic expansion support: Expertise in deploying and managing databases in new geographic regions or compliance zones as your business expands globally.

This guaranteed elasticity means you can execute growth strategies or manage unexpected events with confidence, knowing your database support will instantly match your needs without requiring you to hire and train new staff.

Included in Pythian’s database managed service is add-on advanced hours to help accelerate projects with access to consultants (as and when you need them).

10. Flexible contracting  

What to ask: What flexible contracting models do you offer to ensure our service scales with our business needs—up or down—without penalties?

What to look for: Look for flexible contracting focused on pricing, terms, and the ability to adapt the agreement to your business cycles. A top provider's contracting model should include:

• Consumption-based pricing: Look for models that align costs with your actual usage, rather than rigid, fixed-cost contracts. This helps save money during seasonal troughs
• Tiered service levels: The ability to adjust the service tier (e.g., from 24/7 coverage to business hours only) to match project needs or budget changes without renegotiating the entire agreement.
• Clear exit clauses and flexibility: Avoid lengthy, restrictive lock-in periods. A confident provider offers transparent terms that allow for natural growth or changes in service scope without punitive fees
• Unified service management: A single contract that covers multiple database platforms and cloud services, simplifying vendor management and billing

Pythian database managed service offers: 

• Easy contracting tailored for your specific business needs

• A short-term, annual managed service provider commitment

• Access to certified experts for on-tap advice, built right into your contract

Your next step: partnering for database excellence

If your current database service provider doesn't meet all ten of these criteria or cannot answer your questions, your business is exposed to unnecessary risk and hidden costs. Strategic database managed services are designed to be a clear competitive advantage, not a reactive necessity.