Oracle technologies are like Land Rovers – you can buy a new one, but old unloved workhorses are supporting business everywhere.
But even old Land Rovers and Oracle databases eventually require some level of maintenance and, for Oracle, that means database administration (DBA). Basic DBA support may not need an Oracle specialist. But at some stage proper Oracle DBA support will be required and that day comes sooner for systems that are larger, more complex or critical for the business.
Background requirements and challenges
Despite it being an important service, DBA support is often taken for granted. Perhaps that’s because DBA support pre-dates any other Oracle Managed Service or that it is a truly “low level” service invisible to the business and often not understood.
However, a database or middleware issue affects all applications relying on that technology, thus maintaining efficient, cost-effective DBA should not be overlooked and must be reviewed from time-to-time.
Companies’ requirements for their Oracle databases and middleware support varies enormously and that dictates how DBA support should be delivered;
- Some organisations have just a few, or one, Oracle databases; they often didn’t choose to use Oracle but it came as the technology underpinning a business application. That business needs access to DBA support but wants to minimise the time and money spent supporting a technology problem they didn’t choose.
- At the other end of the spectrum are customers with multiple databases, underpinning back office and front office applications, that have chosen Oracle as their strategic database platform. They use Oracle wherever possible and understand the importance of DBA support, such that they built an in-house DBA team or have outsourced support to a third party.
Organisations vary enormously in what they want from their DBA support. Some want as little as possible: a light touch “keeping the lights on” but delaying change work until it is unavoidable and then delivered via a project. Others, often those with particular requirements for security, performance or availability, take a strategic decision to be more proactive, for example keeping Oracle up-to-date and applying maintenance to prevent incidents.
DBA support is clearly not a one-size-fits-all service, what we believe is consistent is that organisations don’t want to spend time managing and discussing the minutiae of DBA activities – database space, tablespaces or obscure Oracle tuning parameters. They just want to know the
service is delivering their requirements such that they can focus on supporting the business.
Benefits of Claremont’s Oracle DBA Services
- Flexible Support: We allow customers to choose how much Oracle Managed Service support they require. Some customers choose to retain in-house capabilities, while others want Claremont to deliver everything.
- Commercial Certainty: Our fixed price and calloff Managed Service options give customers long term certainty and stability for the costs of Oracle DBA support.
- Operational Certainty: Each customer’s Oracle DBA Managed Service fits their unique needs and, can be combined with their inhouse capabilities and our ITIL-based Service Management.
- Genuine Proactivity: Claremont’s consultants, culture and processes ensure we deliver a proactive service. We have never lost a customer which clearly demonstrates we deliver what we promise.
- Meaningful SLAs: Claremont uniquely offers meaningful SLAs for incident resolution, performance and security. If we fail, then customers get a service credit or can terminate the contract. We have never had to pay a service credit or had a contract terminated for any reason.
Claremont's Solution
Claremont understands these challenges and our customers’ requirements and has built a DBA support service to meet them. Technical capabilities can’t be taken for granted, but our Oracle DBA team has an average of 20 years’ experience (and a minimum 15 years) delivering Oracle DBA support and projects. That gives them a real breadth and depth of experience that can’t be matched by providers using more junior staff. It enables them to support a wide range of technologies and deliver the right technical solutions more quickly.
Claremont supports hundreds of Oracle databases and middleware implementations and these often include complex technology or application support requirements, e.g, Oracle E-Business Suite, RAC, DataGuard, SOA, SSO/OID or Oracle VM.
Despite this, we’re neither a large, generalist System Integrator nor a siloed Oracle DBA service provider and that delivers real benefits for our customers. We’re an Oracle specialist offering broad and scalable services yet we offer the proactivity, flexibility, agility and pricing that our customers want.
Each Claremont customer receives the service they uniquely want, regardless of whether it’s a low-cost “keep the lights on” service for a single system or proactive support for an Oracle estate or something in-between. That’s one reason why many organisations choose Claremont Managed Services for DBA support (80% of customers switch from other providers).
Our dedicated team of the very best Oracle support consultants share a passion for support delivery. We give them the time, space and freedom to deliver excellent support to our customers. Backed with effective ITIL V3 processes and state-of-the-art infrastructure, they deliver faster fixes, better quality solutions, are genuinely proactive and strive for continuous improvement. Most of all, we work in partnership with customers to ensure our support enables their Oracle systems to deliver their business requirements.
Choosing the Right Managed Services Provider
If you are looking for an Oracle partner who can help you with your database administration, goes about it the right way and can back up the talk, then contact us.