Why Outsource Database Administration and Server Management?

DBAs are expensive to recruit, train and employ.

A typical experienced DBA could easily cost over £80k per annum in salary, NI and other benefits.

However, each DBA works for an average of 220 days, or 1760 working hours, per year (allowing for some sickness-breaks and holiday).

This represents a mere 20% of the round-the-clock, 365-day cover your databases need.

To support your databases 24-7 requires at least three DBAs with potentially additional resource required to cover holidays and sickness.

This all adds up to a DBA function costing well over £250k per year, plus the expense of training and recruitment fees.

Outsourcing to database management specialists removes most or all the costs of employing your own DBAs.

Instead, the fees you pay are a fraction of the expense of managing your databases in-house.

Fees are agreed upfront and paid annually or monthly.

Budgets are easier to plan and your IT costs can be more tightly controlled.

When the unexpected does happen it’s important to resolve issues as quickly as possible and keep disruption to a minimum.

Maintaining around-the-clock support isn’t easy, especially if your DBAs fall sick or take unplanned absence.

Any gaps in support can be difficult and expensive to fill at short notice.

Outsourcing to a DBA managed service provider gives you support from a multi-skilled team whenever you need it.

Unlike your in-house staff, they don’t suffer from cover-gaps due to holidays, parental leave or sickness.

They are on standby 24/7/365, ready to react instantly within response-times specified in your SLAs.

This contractually obligates your supplier to provide the cover you need and guarantees you fast problem resolution.

With the digital landscape changing so quickly and new technologies emerging every day, it’s difficult for IT departments to keep up with shifting requirements.

DBAs are often tied up with responding to day-to-day needs and may struggle to update themselves with the newest technologies.

Smaller in-house teams often lack the skills required to support the latest database functionalities or plan and implement specific projects.

Also, as businesses grow and evolve, so the technical needs of their databases are likely to change.

This imposes new technical challenges for internal DBAs who may not be up to speed with the relevant knowledge and training.

Outsource to DBA specialists and you access a deep pool of technical knowhow, on hand whenever you need it.

You have well-qualified database experts at your disposal, all fully trained and familiar with a broad range of database technologies.

Many organisations suffer from a high churn of DBA personnel.

This inflates the cost of finding and onboarding replacement staff and providing them with the necessary skills training.

Frequent turnover in DBA personnel and the resulting lack of continuity also make it more difficult for in depth knowledge to be transferred from person to person and retained within your organisation.

This can be offset by outsourcing to a DBA specialist with high staff retention.

This gives you the advantage of continuous service from a team of DBAs, each able to grow a longstanding knowledge of your systems and needs.

Managing databases is time-intensive as well as expensive DBAs are often preoccupied with routine, operational tasks that prevent them from undertaking more proactive work, or projects that could have more significant business impact.

Managing your DBAs’ recruitment, availability and skills development also takes up valuable time and resources.

Handing day-to-day database management to a third party frees up quality time for you and your IT people to focus on the bigger picture and concentrate on tackling more strategic issues.

And it helps your technical staff to become more productive and motivated.

Internal IT staff are often too immersed in juggling priorities and resolving everyday support issues to spend time considering longer-term improvements to your database environments.

Outsourced DBA specialists, on the other hand, can take a more objective perspective by focusing on preventative management, reviewing and identifying how systems can be improved and optimised to minimise the risk of downtime.

By monitoring your databases on an ongoing basis, they can quickly spot and remedy issues before they cause breakdowns.

This proactive ‘fix-before-fail’ approach gives your databases maximum availability and cuts the time and expense of fire-fighting unforeseen incidents.

Every business experiences highs and lows in the level of database support required.

Sometimes your needs are relatively modest.

At others, your DBAs are stretched to the limit.

Planning your resources to meet these swings in demand can be problematic.

Get it wrong and you could end up with an under-used support team, or DBAs overloaded with work and pushed to breaking-point.

Outsourcing your database management lets you specify the service levels you require and guarantee them in contractual SLAs.

This gives you the peace of mind that, no matter how light or heavy your DBA workload, 24-7 response and resolution times are pre-determined and met.

It guarantees that extra resource is always available to help you, even during the steepest peaks in demand. And gives you the assurance that your databases always have the right level of support, whatever happens.