Virtual DBA & managed SQL Server
A named senior DBA watching the estate is what “managed” is supposed to mean: the problem gets found the week before, not explained the morning after. Here is what that cover includes, and what it should cost.
“Managed” is a word that quietly means different things to different people. To some providers it means we’ll fix it when you tell us it’s broken. To us it means we watch it, patch it, test the backups, and tell you about problems before you have them. Only one of those is actually managing the risk — and the difference never shows up on the invoice. It shows up on the bad day.
Most estates don’t need a full-time DBA on the payroll. They need a senior one who knows the estate and is watching it. That is what a Virtual DBA arrangement is: proactive ownership of SQL Server without the headcount, with SQL Server as the whole job rather than one line on a helpdesk rota.
What your Virtual DBA actually does
The proactive work that keeps SQL Server quiet — the maintenance you only notice when it was skipped.
Proactive monitoring
We watch for the problems that turn into outages — and deal with them before they do.
Patching & maintenance
Security patching and routine maintenance kept current — and provable when an auditor asks.
Restore-tested backups
Recoverability you can actually rely on — tested, not assumed.
Incident response
A senior DBA answering when it matters. Response times are agreed in the engagement contract, in writing, so you can hold us to them.
Capacity & licensing
Capacity planned ahead, and licensing kept off the over-spend before every renewal.
A documented estate
The estate written down, so you're never one resignation away from chaos.
The best outage is the one you never hear about.
Broad MSPs run a helpdesk; a “rockstar” consultant writes a few indexes and vanishes. We sit in the middle: the diagnostic depth of a specialist, kept up over months with the rigour of a managed service. The problems get headed off the week before, not explained the morning after.
Specialist vs MSPA backup you’ve never restored isn’t a safety net. It’s a hope. A Virtual DBA is the difference between finding that out on a quiet Tuesday test — or on the morning the business is down.
From an extra pair of senior hands to the whole estate.
Augment your team
Your team keeps the keys, with senior SQL Server depth added for the hard problems and the on-call gaps.
Co-managed
The estate splits in two. Your team runs the day-to-day, and a named senior DBA takes the risky specialist work.
Full ownership
You hand the estate over end to end: monitoring, maintenance, incidents and all. One instance or a hundred, on-prem or Azure.
Frequently asked questions
What is actually included?
Proactive monitoring of wait stats and blocking, cumulative-update patching, index and statistics maintenance, scheduled DBCC CHECKDBs, restore-tested backups, capacity and licensing planning, incident response, and a documented estate — all handled by a named senior DBA who knows your servers.
Do we get a named DBA, or a ticket queue?
A named senior DBA who knows your estate. When something breaks at the worst possible moment, you talk to someone who has fixed your exact problem before, not a tier-1 agent reading a runbook. Response times are agreed in the engagement contract rather than advertised on a web page, and 24/7 after-hours cover is a separate line. Our pricing guide sets out what a reasonable SLA looks like, and how to tell a response time from a resolution time before you sign anything.
One instance, or a whole estate?
Either. We manage a single critical instance or a hundred across on-prem and Azure. The work scales from augmenting your existing team to owning the estate end to end.
We already have IT, or an MSP. Does this replace them?
No. We are the SQL Server layer a broad MSP or a stretched IT team does not specialise in. We work alongside them — they keep doing what they do well, and the database stops being the blind spot nobody owns.
How do you access our servers safely?
Least-privilege access over your own controls, read-only wherever the work allows, and every change agreed and logged. The health check that usually starts things is entirely read-only and changes nothing.
How is a monthly managed service priced, and are we locked in?
Managed SQL is priced per instance, per month, in tiers: break-fix cover, proactive cover with 24x7 monitoring and automated maintenance, and a mission-critical tier for Always On estates. Typical market rates for this kind of work are in our pricing guide. Expect fixed price, billed monthly, with no meter on calls, meetings or emails, and no lock-in that outlives the value.
Managed cover, or just a one-off fix?
Tell us what is going on. A senior DBA reads every message and points you at the right next step, even when that is not us. If something is broken right now, SQL Server support is the faster door.