Whenever you are shopping, you should look at a few options. I sometimes forget that step, and then regret it afterwards a bit too often. It’s really important to do that when it comes to choosing the firm who will be your Remote DBA or DBA as a Service partner.
I want to do something a little unorthodox here, I’m going to list a few firms I’d actually consider if we weren’t in the picture (or our Remote DBA services weren’t right for you). These are companies I respect. Some of the founders are friends. We’ve referred work back and forth over the years with a few of the firms.
I’m not ranking them. And I’m deliberately not putting Straight Path on this list.
I also left out the big national and global providers. Those firms generally serve a different part of the market than the specialist shops I’m talking about here. If you’re looking for a large enterprise provider, global teams, or a broader outsourcing relationship, some of them may absolutely belong in your search. That’s just not the comparison I’m making in this article.
Here’s my short list. I may be missing a firm that I know and respect, wasn’t trying to be exhaustive but go with the ones that come to mind right now, and I left the solo DBA shops or solo DBA plus one jr. backup out for this comparison.
Sero Group Joe Webb’s company. Smaller team. Values-first and trust-first. Joe has been in the SQL Server community a long time and runs the firm the way a lot of us wish more companies were run. They take compliance seriously (including going on the SOC 2 journey). We’re finishing up our own SOC 2 process right now with our draft report in hand waiting for the final, so I’ve been talking to Joe a bit about his journey. He does it well, and I trust him and his team even without their SOC 2 report. If you want a high-touch specialist shop, Sero is worth a conversation. Joe is one of my favorite people in the SQL Server community, too.
Procure SQL I know and trust the founder and a bunch of the people on their team. Not the smallest team on this list, but not as large a team as Fortified, SQL Watchmen or us. They lean a little more into the broader data platform side (architecture, integration, reporting, analytics) than pure operational DBA work based on what they put on their site first, but they have excellent DBAs and can absolutely do managed DBA services. If your needs sit closer to the development and data platform side of the house, they’re a strong option.
Dallas DBAs Smaller firm. Generally sits at a lower price point than most of the others on this list. Solid coverage and a practical SQL Server focus. We’ve sent some work to them and they’ve sent work to us. Their model is often a good fit when what you really need is lighter fractional coverage with a good, smaller, mid-level team, or a solid emergency backup.
SQLWatchmen Austin-based. Pure SQL Server focus. Founder-led. US-based team. They’ve been doing remote DBA work for a long time and keep the model relatively simple. Another solid specialist option if you want a focused SQL Server shop.
Fortified Data A bit larger than the others on this list. Multi-platform, and they’ve built a commercial monitoring software/product side (Fortified WISdom) in addition to services that they sell, and they have more of an enterprise-oriented feel than some of the smaller specialist shops here. If you need broader database platform coverage or getting into multi-platform support beyond just SQL Server and PostgreSQL that we cover, or a larger operational model, I’d put them on the list of companies to talk to.
As with any provider (including us), I’d make sure you understand the contract terms, service levels, what’s included, how changes to the relationship work and changes between levels work, and what happens if you eventually need to leave. Check out all of the posts with the buying DBA services tag – you can think of questions to ask any of us and get some thoughts on pricing, fit and what to look for in a firm. Next week, I’ll talk about the question we sometimes hear, “Can our MSP be our DBA team? Should they?” It depends and I’ll talk more about it. Then after that one I’ll be putting all of these posts in this tag into a guide for folks to read and give a few checklists. Subscribe to the newsletter to keep up.
How I’d Think About the Short List
There’s plenty of overlap between these companies and even our own, so don’t treat this as a ranking or assume one sentence captures everything a company does. But if I were starting the conversations today, this is roughly how I’d think about them:
- Want a smaller, high-touch specialist relationship with a smaller bench but good experience and compliance chops and one who also works with financial institutions like we do? Talk to Sero Group.
- Need broader data platform and development capabilities or architecture as a service and some help with PowerBI and Fabric resources directly on the team? Talk to Procure SQL.
- Looking for lighter fractional coverage, more keep the lights on support, or more price sensitivity? Talk to Dallas DBAs.
- Want a focused SQL Server specialist model? Talk to SQLWatchmen.
- Need broader database platforms or a larger operational model? Talk to Fortified Data.
Services change. Teams change. Pricing changes. Talk to them and ask questions rather than treating any of this as final answers.
What About Pricing?
Most of these firms don’t publish full pricing the way we do, so you’ll need to fill out quote requests, maybe talk to them to get current numbers and understand what is actually included. Dallas DBAs has historically been one of the more transparent on that front.
And frankly, don’t compare these companies on the quoted price alone.
Ask what the price buys. Does it include monitoring? Who responds to alerts? What happens after hours? Do you get a named DBA? How much actual DBA time is included? What costs extra? Are projects handled differently? What’s the contract commitment? What happens when you need more or less help? What’s the true SLA?
Two companies can both call something “DBA as a Service” or “Remote DBA” and be selling pretty different relationships.
We’ve written quite a bit about those questions elsewhere (the pricing post, the problems post, the first 90 days post, the FTE vs DBA as a Service post) because I think they matter more than trying to reduce every provider to an hourly rate.
Why Am I Publishing a List of Our Competitors?
Because if you’re seriously considering DBA as a Service, you should probably talk to more than one provider and I’d rather tell you who I respect than pretend we’re the only company capable of doing this work well.
If after looking at these options you still think Straight Path is the best fit, we’re happy to talk. If we aren’t? I get it, talk to those shops, you can’t go wrong.
The goal here is the same goal I’ve tried to keep across this whole series. The bad-fit post. The problems post. The full-time DBA vs DBA as a Service post. The first 90 days post. All of it.
Your SQL Server environment should end up with the right team. Not necessarily always our team.