One DBA is one set of holidays
A single in-house DBA is a single point of failure, a key-person risk, and a recruiting problem the day they resign. A team of specialists removes all three without a second hire.
Your databases, managed around the clock
Senior US-based DBAs for SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL, on premises, in the cloud, or both. Choose a managed service plan, or keep a specialist on call for the moments that matter.
15 minGuaranteed emergency response
100%US-based team, no offshore hand-offs
Since 2002Database specialists
4Platforms, one agreement
The business case
The case for managed services
What changes when an expert partner owns your database environment.
29–51%
Lower cost than an equivalent in-house DBA team, with broader coverage than one hire can provide.
Fortified Data competitive analysis
67%
Fewer unplanned outages for organizations running managed database services.
Fortified Data client data
30%
Average reduction in infrastructure cost through FinOps right-sizing.
WISdom platform data
Organizations with managed database services resolve incidents up to four times faster than internal-only teams.
The work that keeps a system up is the work nobody is scheduled to do
The index quietly degrading, the backup nobody has restored, the configuration that drifted two quarters ago. None of them raise an alert until the day they cause an outage.
Hiring for the peak means paying for the trough
Database work is lumpy. Migrations and upgrades need senior depth for a few weeks, then not again for a year.
Specialists see your failure before you do
A team that works across hundreds of client environments has usually seen your problem already, which turns a three-day diagnosis into a three-hour one.
Two ways to put senior DBAs on your environment
Need a defined project instead? Explore consulting. Not sure where you stand? Start with a database health check.
Managed service plans
We run your environment. Every plan includes 24/7 monitoring through the WISdom platform, maintenance, and patching. Select, our recommended plan for most environments, adds proactive tuning, a Strategic Improvement Plan, and guaranteed emergency response; Signature adds high availability management. Compare plans.
On-Call DBA
You run your environment; we stand behind it. A guaranteed 15-minute response from a senior DBA on every emergency call, plus monthly on-demand hours that bank when unused, for upgrades, migrations, tuning, and the work your team cannot absorb. See On-Call DBA.
Where we usually come in
There is no DBA in-house
Database work has landed on a team with nine other priorities.
There is one DBA
One person cannot cover nights, weekends, holidays, and a second platform.
The environment is mixed
SQL Server and Oracle, or PostgreSQL and MySQL, with nobody expert in more than one.
Maintenance has fallen behind
Patching, index maintenance, or restore testing has slipped.
Hiring has not worked
The senior DBA role has been open for months.
Coverage has to be provable
An auditor, an insurer, or a customer wants evidence the database layer is monitored, patched, and recoverable.
Remote, not outsourced
You keep the decisions: your retention policy, your change windows, the risks worth carrying. What moves to us is the work that follows from those decisions, done consistently at three in the morning and in the week between Christmas and New Year.
Most clients keep their internal team. We cover the nights and weekends, the platform nobody in-house specializes in, or the routine administration crowding out project work. Responsibilities are agreed up front, so nothing falls into the gap between two teams.
Your environment is supported by a team of senior specialists across every platform you run, with an assigned Strategic Account Manager as your single point of contact, and every change follows your change control process.
Evidence, not assurances
- On every engagement. Environment documentation and a risk-prioritized environment review, captured at onboarding.
- On managed service plans. A documented configuration baseline, so drift is a detected event rather than something found while diagnosing an outage.
- Every month. A report on performance, capacity and growth trends, maintenance completed, and incidents raised and resolved.
- On a cadence. Business reviews with your Strategic Account Manager, with a monthly service review on Select and Signature, and an annual data environment assessment on Signature.
Multi-platform discipline
What managed service means on each platform
One team, one agreement, and one set of standards across every platform you run. Depth of coverage follows your plan: HA/DR management and annual failover testing are part of Signature, while upgrades, new builds, and architecture work draw from your on-demand hours.
Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL
Always On availability group health, index and statistics strategy, tempdb and memory configuration, and version currency.
Oracle
RAC and Data Guard health, RMAN backup strategy, and workload-based performance analysis.
PostgreSQL
Streaming replication and failover, vacuum and bloat management, connection pooling, and major-version upgrade paths.
MySQL
Replication topology and lag, InnoDB configuration, binary log and backup strategy, and version upgrades.
Cloud databases
Amazon RDS and Aurora, Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance, and Google Cloud SQL, with parameter settings, sizing recommendations based on measured load, and backup and point-in-time recovery settings.
Mixed and hybrid environments
A mixed environment is the normal case, and it does not get split into four contracts with four different answers.
Onboarding
How every engagement starts
Nothing is switched on against an environment that has not been documented first.
-
Environment review
Architecture, server health, configuration, and administration practices, written down before anything changes.
-
Goals and baselines
Performance goals, monitoring baselines, and the scope of coverage, agreed rather than assumed.
-
Capacity and risk review
Growth trends, availability posture, and recovery readiness, so the first conversation about a ceiling happens before it is reached.
-
Handoff and activation
Your team meets ours, responsibilities are divided explicitly, and coverage goes live.
Why teams choose Fortified Data
Database specialists
Data is all we do. A provider whose bench also covers networks, endpoints, and a help desk staffs databases as one item on a longer list.
US-based, every hour
No offshore hand-offs and no junior staff on critical issues, 24/7 × 365.
Proactive by design
We watch the environment continuously, so issues surface before your users notice them.
Multi-platform discipline
Four platforms, on premises and in the cloud, under one agreement rather than four contracts with four different answers.
Scales with you
Add instances, move up a plan, or size on-demand hours to a migration, without renegotiating the relationship.
An extension of your team
Honest assessment, strategic guidance, and shared accountability, over a relationship rather than a ticket.
Common questions
What is a database managed service provider?
A database managed service provider takes ongoing operational ownership of your databases: monitoring, alerting, patching, backup and recovery, maintenance, performance tuning, and reporting, for a predictable monthly fee. Fortified Data provides this for SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with senior US-based DBAs.
Do you replace our internal DBA team?
Usually not. Most clients keep their internal team and use us for the depth or the hours they cannot staff: after-hours coverage, a platform nobody in-house specializes in, or project work during a migration. Where there is no DBA in-house, we take full operational ownership.
How is this different from general IT support?
General IT teams manage networks, endpoints, identity, and databases as one responsibility among many. Our DBAs work only on database platforms and act on trends, such as a filling disk, a degrading query plan, or a backup chain that has stopped verifying, before they reach your users.
How is this different from database vendor support?
Vendor support answers tickets about one vendor's product. It does not manage your environment, tune it, or take responsibility for a mixed estate. We cover SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and cloud databases under one agreement.
Is giving an external team remote access a security risk?
It is a risk to control, and we work inside your controls: access through the methods and permissions you define, scoped to what database administration requires, with every change following your change control. Our team is 100% US-based, and background check attestations are available on request. Current documentation of our own controls is in the Trust Center.
Should we choose a managed service plan or On-Call DBA?
If you want us running and improving your environment, choose a plan; Select is our recommended starting point. If your team runs it and wants senior DBAs behind them for emergencies and projects, choose On-Call DBA. You can start on call and move to Select whenever you are ready.
Let's find the right level of coverage
A 30-minute consultation covers your environment, the platforms you run, and whether a plan or On-Call DBA fits.
Let us show you what's possible.
Two ways to start