How to get a customer to understand the importance of a qualified DBA?

Question

I'm part of a software development company where we do custom developed applications for our clients.

Our software uses MS SQL Server and we have encountered some customers which do not have a DBA on staff to manage the databases or if they do, they lack the necessary knowledge to perform their job adequately.

We are in the process of drafting a contract with one of those customers to provide development services for new functionality on our software during the next year, where they have an amount of hours available for customization of our software.

Now they want us to include also a quote for database administration services and the problem is that they are including a clause that says that those services will be provided only when they request it.

My first reaction is that db administration is an ongoing process and not something that they can call us once a month to come for a day or two. I'm talking about a central 1TB+ MSSql Cluster and 100 branch offices with MSSql Workgroup edition.

My question is for any suggestions on how I could argue that there must be a fixed amount of hours every month for dba work and not only when their management thinks they need it (which I’m guessing would only be when they have a problem).

PS: Maybe this will be closed as not programming related. But I'm a programmer and I have this problem. My work is software development but i don't want to lose this client and the only solution I can think of is to find a way for the client to understand the scope so we can hire a qualified DBA to provide them with the service they require.

Edit: We are in a Latin American country with clients in the Spanish speaking region. My guess is that in more developed countries there is a culture that knows how delicate the situation is.

Answer 1

This is definitely one of those 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink' situations.

My recommendation here would be to quote the DBA services as hourly, and make the rate high enough that you can outsource the work if you decide you want to. When (not if) the SQL servers start to have problems, the firm is on the hook.

I would also recommend that you include in your quote a non-optional 2 hour database technology review once per year. This is your opportunity to say 'You spent XXX on database maintenance this year, most of which was spent fighting fires that could have been easily avoided if you had just spent XXXX/4 and hired a DBA. We care about you as a customer, and we want you to save money, so we really recommend that you commit to using a DBA to perform periodic preventative maintenance'.

I would also recommend that you categorize any support requests as having root cause b/c of database maintenance vs other causes. This will let you put a nice pie chart in front of the customer during their annual review (which they are going to pay you to perform). It is critical to manage the perception so they don't think your code is causing the problems. You might even go so far as to share these metrics (db related issue vs non-db related issue) with them on a quarterly basis.

Sometimes people need to experience pain before they change. The key is to not be in between the hammer and their thumb as they learn the lesson, and hourly quoted work is one way of doing this.

As a side note, this sort of question is of great interest to a large number of developers. I'd say that this sort of thing could impact a programmer's quality of life more than any algorithm or library question ever could. Thanks for asking it!

Answer 2

No DBA on a system that size is a disaster waiting to happen. If they don't understand that, they are not qualified to run a database that size. I'd recommend that they talk to other companies with similar sized databases and have them ask them about their DBAs and what they do for them, and if they think they could survive without them.