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About 24x7DBA

Senior DBAs from a company that has run SQL Server since 2001

24x7DBA is the on-demand brand of Databaseonline B.V. in Roosendaal. Same engineers as the DatabaseOnline consultancy, one difference: you book a slot, agree the hours and start, without a procurement round. This page explains who we are, how we work and how we handle the keys to your databases.

  • 2001DatabaseOnline founded. Microsoft SQL Server from the first day.
  • Senior onlyEvery engineer has more than fifteen years on production SQL Server.
  • RoosendaalNorth Brabant, an hour from Rotterdam and Antwerp. On-site in NL and BE.
  • Remote worldwideSecure remote access, in the Central European time zone.

Why 24x7DBA exists

Most calls to a database consultancy start with "this week"

DatabaseOnline has designed, tuned, migrated and monitored SQL Server environments for organisations in the Netherlands and Belgium for over twenty years. Along the way one type of call kept coming: not a project, not a tender, but "our DBA is out, can somebody look at this this week". Those customers did not need a proposal. They needed extra hands, fast, from someone senior.

24x7DBA is the answer to that call. A booking page instead of an intake process, hourly rates instead of day minimums, and a named senior DBA instead of a service desk. The "24x7" in the name is a promise we can keep because of what sits behind it: DatabaseOnline's 24x7x365 monitoring platform and the on-call rota that goes with it.

You contract with Databaseonline B.V., the same legal entity, the same KvK number and the same people. The brand is different because the way you buy is different.

Core values

The three principles the original 24x7DBA site was built on still hold. Rewritten for how we actually work.

Integrity

We say it when you do not need us. When the honest answer is "your backups are fine, your index maintenance is fine, the vendor is wrong", that is the answer you get, and the invoice is one hour.

Excellence

Senior only, measured before and after. A performance job ends with numbers, an availability job ends with a tested failover, and every job ends with a written summary.

Collaboration

We work with your team, not around it. Your ticketing, your change process, your maintenance windows, and documentation written so your own people can carry it on.

Danny Riebeek, founder of DatabaseOnline and 24x7DBA
Danny RiebeekFounder of DatabaseOnline and 24x7DBA, principal SQL Server DBA, builder of SQLTreeo.

A word from the founder

"I still take the calls. That is the point."

I started DatabaseOnline in 2001 because SQL Server estates were being run by whoever had the least to do that week, and it showed at three in the morning. Twenty-five years later that has not changed as much as you would hope. The tooling is better, the cloud is real, and the person who knows why the log drive fills up on Sunday is still on holiday when it does.

24x7DBA is the simplest version of what we do: a senior engineer, available fast, for as long as you need. No account manager between you and the person doing the work. When you book a slot on this site, the invitation comes from me or from one of the people I have worked with for years, and the report you get afterwards is written by the same person who typed the fix.

If your database is doing something it should not, book twenty minutes. The first call is free, and it is usually enough to know what the second one will be about.

Danny RiebeekFounder, Databaseonline B.V.

How an engagement runs

The same four things, whether it is one hour or one year

You will find these on every engagement sheet we send. They are what "senior" means in practice.

  1. Named DBA

    One senior engineer owns your work and knows your estate. A named backup covers holidays and illness, briefed from the runbook.

  2. Written scope

    What we will do, what we will not touch, what it costs and when it starts, agreed in writing before the first hour is invoiced.

  3. Change log

    Every change on production has a reason, a script and a rollback. The log is yours and you can request it at any time.

  4. Report

    A short written summary after every job and a monthly report on retainers, in Dutch or English, written by the person who did the work.

How we work securely

We hold the keys to your databases. This is how we handle them.

A DBA-for-hire with access to production is a supplier your security team should question. These are the answers to the questions we get asked most.

1. Access to your environment

  • Every engineer connects with a personal, named account that you create. We do not use shared or generic logins, and we ask you not to create them for us.
  • Connections run over your VPN, a jump host you control, or our hardened gateway, always encrypted with TLS. Multi-factor authentication is required on every path.
  • Rights follow the agreed scope. Sysadmin rights are requested explicitly, can be time-limited, and are withdrawn on the day an engagement ends. You receive a list of the accounts to remove.
  • Where we monitor, the monitoring login has VIEW SERVER STATE and read access to backup and job history. It cannot read the data in your tables.

2. How changes are made

  • No change on a production system without a logged reason: an alert, a ticket or an agreed plan.
  • Changes are scripted, reviewed where the risk warrants it, and executed inside the maintenance windows agreed with you. Every script has a rollback path.
  • Emergency mitigation during an incident is allowed within the agreed scope and is reported to you the next morning: what was changed and why.

3. Our people

Everyone who works on customer environments is bound by a confidentiality agreement and by your NDA where you require one. Engineers work from managed devices with disk encryption, screen lock and endpoint protection. Customer credentials are stored in a password manager with per-customer vaults, never in documents, e-mail or chat.

4. Incident response and data processing

  • A security incident that affects your environment or your data is reported to your named contact within 24 hours of confirmation, with what we know, what we have done and what we recommend.
  • When we process personal data on your behalf we act as your processor under a data processing agreement (verwerkersovereenkomst) and support your 72-hour notification duty towards the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens with the technical facts you need.
  • Our own systems are hosted in Microsoft Azure data centres in the European Union.

5. Supporting your compliance

We do not hold a certification of our own. We do support customer audits under ISO 27001, NEN 7510, SOC 2, GDPR and sector regulations by providing evidence: access lists, change logs, backup and restore test reports and the data processing agreement. Where your policy requires it, we work under your procedures rather than ours.

6. Responsible disclosure

If you have found a vulnerability in this website or in our systems, report it to danny.riebeek@databaseonline.nl with the subject "Responsible disclosure" and the steps to reproduce. We confirm receipt within three business days, keep you informed, and do not take legal action against researchers who act in good faith.

The DatabaseOnline family

One company, a family of specialised brands

Databaseonline B.V. is the umbrella and your contracting party. Underneath it are tools for SQL Server professionals and focused service brands. Each one does one thing well; 24x7DBA does fast, senior, on-demand DBA work for the Netherlands and Belgium.

About every brand in the family
Legal entity
Databaseonline B.V.KvK 30171190 · VAT NL820774704B01
Address
Kade 28, 4703 GG RoosendaalThe Netherlands
Working hours
08:30 to 17:30 CETMonday to Friday; 24x7 via monitoring
Languages
Dutch & EnglishCalls, reports and runbooks in either

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