Remote DBA + 24/7 on-call — recurring engagement
MariaDB Remote DBA: your external DBA team, with optional 24/7 on-call
You keep your infrastructure (on-premise, RDS, OVH, Scaleway…), RDEM Systems becomes your external DBA team, with 24/7 on-call available on critical databases. Monitoring, tuning, patching, incident response, backups, advisory. The same expertise as for our hosted clients, without changing hosting.
Why a Remote DBA over an in-house DBA
Recruiting a senior MariaDB DBA takes 6 to 12 months, costs €70k–110k/year loaded, and is still one person who takes leave, gets sick, leaves the company. On critical databases, that's a single point of failure.
The RDEM Systems Remote DBA solves this: a shared DBA team, available, with continuous coverage, and Signal18 escalation on replication / HA topics. You no longer depend on one person.
It's also cheaper than a full-time hire on most load profiles. You pay for the DBA time actually consumed, not a permanent position that isn't saturated.
What we do day to day
A shared DBA team handles the tasks your devops/SRE shouldn't have to do at 3 am.
Proactive monitoring
Continuous monitoring of replication lag, slow queries, deadlocks, disk space, InnoDB buffer pool, connection pool. Alerts triaged before they reach your on-call.
Performance tuning
Slow query log analysis, EXPLAIN reviews, index recommendations, schema advice, my.cnf tuning. Periodic performance reports.
Patching & upgrades
MariaDB minor and major version planning, security patches, rolling upgrades on replicated clusters. Coordination with your release calendar.
Incident response
Replication broken, slow queries, deadlocks, corruption, accidental DELETE — RDEM DBAs respond. PITR restores done by us, not by your stressed devs.
Backup & restore drills
Backup strategy review, retention validation, quarterly restore drills on isolated environment, RPO/RTO measured and documented.
Advisory & roadmap
Recurring architecture reviews, capacity planning, replication topology evolution, migration planning when it's time. We're the DBAs you didn't recruit.
Which infrastructure we operate on
Remote DBA doesn't require relocating your databases to RDEM. We operate on the infrastructure you have, where it is.
On-premise (your datacenter)
Bare metal, your virtualization, your network. We connect via dedicated VPN or jump host.
Your cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP, OVH, Scaleway)
Including managed services: RDS, Cloud SQL, OVH Managed Databases. We operate within your account, no infrastructure relocation needed.
Hybrid (multi-site)
On-prem primary + cloud replica, or the other way around. We handle the replication topology and operational consistency.
Your hosting provider
Existing managed hosting (Cyllene, Claranet, OVHcloud Pro, etc.). We work alongside your hoster on the DBA layer.
Engagement modes
Four formats depending on actual load. No overbilling: unused time on reserved/continuous plans rolls over to the following month.
On-demand
Ad hoc days
Punctual interventions, pay-per-day at the daily rate. Good fit for stable bases with occasional needs.
Reserved
1 to 3 days/month
Reserved bandwidth on our team. Best fit for the majority of mid-size bases — proactive monitoring + reactive interventions.
Continuous
4+ days/month
RDEM DBA effectively integrated into your team. Recurring tuning, periodic reviews, on-call coordination.
24/7 on-call
Add-on
Out-of-hours on-call rotation for critical bases. Pager response under 30 minutes, escalation path to Signal18 for complex incidents.
Not to be confused with…
…our hosted MariaDB offer (Standard / Galera)
On the managed MariaDB offer from €75/month, your databases are hosted by RDEM and operations are included. On Remote DBA, you keep your hosting and only the DBA expertise is shared with us.
…generic server management
For server management (Linux, Proxmox, Kubernetes, OS-level monitoring), you want RDEM Managed Services, not Remote DBA. Remote DBA is strictly focused on the MariaDB database layer.
…a one-shot audit
The MariaDB audit is a point-in-time engagement (baseline, report, restitution). Remote DBA is a recurring engagement. Many clients start with an audit before moving to Remote DBA.
Pricing
DBA daily rate
Same rate as the audit. Billed by half-day minimum in "on-demand" mode. Reserved / continuous plans offer a volume discount.
24/7 on-call
Add-on for critical databases. Includes the pager, rotation, Signal18 coordination on replication/HA incidents. 3-month minimum engagement.
Remote DBA is a fixed-price engagement on quote. The fee is sized to the committed volume (days/month) and any optional on-call rotation.
The initial 15-min scoping call is free. For existing undocumented environments, a preliminary MariaDB audit is recommended to calibrate the right days/month volume.
The engagement is cancellable with one month notice. No contractual lock-in — you stay because it works, not because you're stuck.
Got a MariaDB database without a dedicated DBA?
Let's scope your need in 15 minutes. Kickoff possible within 2 weeks.
Start your managed MariaDB project
Let's discuss your database needs. Our DBA team advises you on the optimal architecture for your use case.
RDEM Systems SAS — SIREN 820 338 671 — 5 B rue des Noyers, 95300 Pontoise