Frequently Asked Questions
Answers
Q. What does Valcora do?
A. Valcora provides Database Administrator (DBA) services for a variety
of companies both large and small. We provide remote DBA services for
MySQL servers. We package many years of experience in MySQL consulting,
performance tuning, security, monitoring, development, and much more, into
an affordable service that you can't afford to be without!
With Valcora, you benefit from a team of MySQL experts! You don't have
to settle for one person and hope for the best that you made the right
choice in an employee. Doesn't it make more sense to have bench strength?
We think so and make our living providing it to companies like yourself!
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Q. Why do I need Valcora?
A. To answer this question, let's look at your alternatives in the
questions below. We understand that many companies are in business to
make money and not waste it on services they don't need. With this in
mind, we have identified some mistakes that can be avoided by engaging
Valcora as part of your team. Read below to see why!
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Q. Why shouldn't I just hire a full-time DBA?
A. Have you checked to see what a full-time MySQL DBA earns? You may be
surprised! The reality is that most of those valuable dollars you are
paying them are probably being wasted while they try to convince you they
are busy! We have seen this happen more than once and many of us have
been in this situation ourselves. You would not believe how many
companies are paying for 40 hours a week for a DBA who does 5-10 hours per
week of actual work! If you want to waste your hard-earned money, there
are much more enjoyable ways to do it, but if you want to maximize your
dollars, you need the Valcora advantage. Below are some of the issues we
have seen:
- Wasted hours and salary. Many DBA's have to work to come up with
non-sensical justifications for their salary. In other words, they "make
stuff up" for meetings and such to try to explain why they are needed
full-time. This is not the case with Valcora where you get only what you
need from us and more important, pay only for what you actually need! We
have found that the actual time worked is often barely enough to even
justify a part-time employee must less full-time!
- No backup support for on-call. Even if you have a talented DBA,
he/she will eventually need time off. Holidays, vacation, sick time,
etc., are real necessities in life. Even if he/she is willing to go on 24
x 7 x 365 support for a short period of time, it really can't be
permanent. With Valcora, the team is always available! Problems don't
wait until your DBA is reachable. As Murphy's Law states, they will occur
when they are not available!
- Bench strength. A lone DBA has no one to "bounce ideas off of."
They are forced to make decisions in isolation and therefore make
mistakes. At Valcora, our entire team is available for brainstorming so
we can present the best solution to you.
- Startup time. Finding a good employee is a major search! Trust
us, we know! When you find someone that has exceptional talent, work
ethics, and such, you had better hang on to them! Unfortunately, this
process can take months. We remember seeing a few clients search for such
a person for over a year, before utilizing our services! Can you really
afford to wait that long? You don't have to! Valcora is available
immediately with a team of such experts ready to get your project moving!
Try out free Employee Cost Calculator to see what it will really cost and how much you can save with Valcora!
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Q. Why can't I just hire a PHP programmer who can do MySQL?
A. Unfortunately, a PHP programmer is typically not skilled at DBA tasks.
While they may be able to create databases, tables, etc., they are not
experts at performance tuning, security, etc. Below are some of the
issues we have seen with this approach:
- Programmers are typically concerned with getting it "working" and
moving on to the next task or project. Little attention is normally given
to how well it functions, scales, etc. You do plan on your business
growing don't you? We thought so!
- Performance tuning is a science and is best left to the experts.
Even if the server is "optimized" for today, chances are it will not be in
a few months when the load and usage of the server changes. To keep it
running at optimal levels requires on-going intervention and tweaking.
Even if he/she manages to get it running ok, will they still be there to
do it again in 3-6 months? We will be there as long as we can be of
service to you!
- Programmers do not always worry about security issues with
database access. We cannot begin to tell you how many times we have seen
all permissions granted to a database user because the developer(s) didn't
want to bother with giving the minimal privileges necessary to perform the
required tasks. Opening up all privileges is begging for a disaster when
the application is compromised or an undiscovered bug rears its ugly head!
We have even see developers use the "root" level super-user for their
website! One injection-attack and a web visitor could have access to
every database on the server stealing data, defacing the site, etc. The
sky is the limit!
- Your developer(s) need to be spending their time and energy on
developing code and meeting deadlines, not database security,
administration, and tuning! This is where we fill an integral role in
your team.
- Where does your developer(s) go now when he/she cannot figure out
what is wrong with the database server? They probably spend countless
hours searching through internet forums looking for a similar problem.
All of these hours come at a premium to you in salary, not to mention the
fact that so much valuable time is wasted! Let our experts get you the
answers you need when you need them!
- We have all heard the old cliché "Jack of all trades, master of
none." This is quite true. It is simply impossible for one person to
stay up-to-date on all components of the business: Linux, Apache, MySQL,
PHP, Perl, Ajax, etc. Even within MySQL, it is nearly impossible for one
person to be an expert of all technologies including replication,
clustering, performance tuning, security auditing, etc. This is where
hiring a team like Valcora is a wise business investment. You gain from
the collective knowledge of a team of MySQL experts!
- Even if you are able to get one person who can do it all, what
will you do if he/she gets sick, moves on to another project, etc.?
Trusting your entire infrastructure to a single "point of failure" is a
risk you don't have to take!
- Who will provide on-call support 24 x 7 x 365? Can you really
expect a single person to be available all of the time for emergencies?
If so, how long do you think they will stay with your company before the
stress gets to them and they find another job? With Valcora, you get a
team of DBA's standing ready to get your system back up and running. We
are simply a call or email away!
- Startup time. Finding someone proficient at MySQL Database
Administration as well as programming is not going to be an easy task! In
fact, it is quite near impossible as our clients have told us. Finding a
good programmer, however, is quite reasonable. Let us be your MySQL
experts!
As you can see, this is a dangerous! We have seen so many companies waste
thousands, if not millions, of dollars trying to get a "master of all
trades!" Why would you want to take that risk, when it is so easy to get
a team of MySQL experts at Valcora.
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Q. Why not just hire a Temporary Contract DBA?
A. The answer is the same for the full-time DBA except that it is going
to cost you a lot more per hour! By the time you pay the outrageous fees
of a staffing service, who will have money left for development, hosting,
salaries, profit, etc.? Again, with Valcora, you get what you need at
tremendous value!
- Outrageous Staffing Service fees! Typically staffing services
charge as much as double for their hourly rate as the DBA is making. Most
of these contracts are for three months term. You will pay more than just
"an arm or a leg" for their service. In fact, you may have to throw in a
few more body parts to cover the cost! With Valcora, we have contracts
starting at three months that will cost much less and provide much more!
- Are your needs really only for three months? Most clients are
surprised to find out that databases don't always just run perfectly on
their own from now on. Application code may be fine to run untouched for
years, but try that with a database server and you are in for quite a
surprise! Who are you going to call in six months when your server
crashes, data is corrupted, or your database server will not start up on
reboot? Oh, that temporary DBA who is long-since gone and moved on to
another job? Of course not, you are on your own if you don't have Valcora
backing you up! You can give us a call or email us if there are any
issues and we will be on our way to solving it before you even remember
his/her name!
Back to Questions
Q. Do I even need a DBA? My website is hosted with a hosting company and it is
their problem, not mine!
A. Are you that confident? If so, we may have some beach-front property
to sell you in Arkansas!
Hosting companies are concerned with keeping your database up and running,
but that is it! Your database is most likely residing on a server with
several other databases. This means that some System Administrator
(probably not a DBA) you have never met has access to your data. One
small mistake in permissions and your valuable and confidential data is
exposed to the world! How are you going to explain that to your
customers? You went with the "cheap" alternative and now it may very well
cost your business and maybe even your personal assets!
Since all of the databases are shared on a common database server, nothing
is tuned for performance for your data. At best, you are getting
something that merely works. Someone else probably made decisions for you
as to the "greater good" of everyone sharing the server. Let's just hope
that fits you, although you shouldn't get your hopes up. Valcora will
tune your server to run at levels you will want to brag to your friends
about!
Oh, and guess what they will do if you call and say your data is corrupt?
They will offer to format your partition and restore from a backup (if
there are any). I guarantee you will lose a lot of data that way! There
will be no point-in-time recovery to the moment disaster struck! Let's
just hope they have a backup from last week!
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Q. How does Valcora charge?
A. Most of our clients pay for a monthly retainer where they secure our services on
as needed basis for just the hours they typically need. In exchange for allowing
us to schedule our consultants, we offer drasitic discounts on our services. Others
prefer to pay on an as-needed basis only. While this may cost a little more, some
clients find that their needs are very sporatic and we offer plans for this as well.
Contact our team today to find out what plan best suits your needs!
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Conclusion
With all of this in mind, how can you afford not to bring us into your
team? Give us a call or email us and we will be glad to talk with you
about what we can do to take your business to the next level?
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