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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Four Cornerstone's Oracle Services

Providing the Oracle technical database services your organization requires, Four Cornerstone's Oracle Services experienced staff allows us to assemble a team with the specific skill sets you require to accomplish your most daunting tasks.

Including:

• Oracle Real Application Clusters
• Oracle DataGuard (physical or logical standby) Systems
• Oracle On Line Transaction Processing Systems
• Oracle Data Warehousing Systems
• Oracle Advanced Replication

Many Remote Oracle DBA services advertise themselves as experts, when in reality they offer only junior level DBA's – beginners. We proudly publish the names and résumés of their remote DBA staff. All remote DBA Oracle support is based in the U.S.A – we prefer to be on the same continent as our customers. With remote DBA support, IT managers can be assured that a competent professional who is thoroughly familiar with that Oracle database supports their database.

With a full-time DBA, high attrition has become a major problem, and large companies have noted that the average Oracle DBA can be expected to leave his or her current position every four years. The most common reasons cited for leaving are low benefits and raises and the failure of the company to provide technical challenge. With this high attrition rate for general DBA professionals, the average time on any job is less than three years.

With remote DBA support, IT managers are guaranteed that they have a certified DBA constantly watching their databases. Also by using remote DBA support, IT shops avoid the risk of losing their confidential technology to competitors. Even more important, they do not need to wait for weeks while a new DBA becomes familiar with their databases. With remote DBA support, managers can be assured that their databases are getting the best possible care. This allows IT managers to focus on other important issues and maximize their productivity. Taken together, these are all compelling reasons to use professional remote DBA support. Even the most concerned IT managers cannot guarantee that their DBA staff will always be available for an unexpected Oracle outage.

We employ only seasoned Oracle professionals who have the necessary experience and modern skill sets you depend on to ensure your database environments high efficient, secure, and available. Our focus is on using solid best practices and doing things right the first time in order to avoid performance issues, data loss, or downtime.

Our consultants can be contracted for either on-site, or remote DBA support. You have the flexibility of choice. Remote access can be provided via secure shell or any number of popular VPN systems as your company policy dictates. The quality of our service is guaranteed through either our standard service level agreement, or your own.

From daily operations to strategic decision-making, you depend on your databases to empower your business. This means you must have access to your stored information when, and where you need it. Four Cornerstone's three-tiered system of support services provides only the Oracle resources require – and at a level of support specific to your individual needs. You can also opt for 24/7 comprehensive coverage for mission-critical databases and just proactive monthly reviews for other systems.

Four Cornerstone Oracle Service Support Levels

Enterprise Dedicated Support

Four Cornerstone's Perpetual Oracle Services provide around the clock monitoring and maintenance of your databases and system, leaving your team free to concentrate on their duties during the day. Using our highest level of Oracle Support Services provides the continuous maintenance services to decrease the chances of database failure. Also, our staff will proactively monitor your systems, probing any problem areas, and initiating corrective actions before your vital flow of data can suffer an outage.

• Oracle database modifications
• Patch upgrades and migrations
• User and Security managements
• Oracle data migrations from servers to servers
• Disaster Recovery design and implementation
• Oracle SQL Tuning
• New database design and configuration
• Oracle Real Application Cluster architecture, implementation and performance tuning.
• Hands-on training
• Daily, proactive monitoring and administration using Oracle Enterprise Manager, Grid Control
• Backup and recovery planning
• Database performance monitoring and tuning
• Disaster recovery analysis and testing
• SQL tuning analysis
• Space management and capacity planning
• Security administration and maintenance
• Highly available architecture design and implementation

(Account Manager Option)

With Enterprise Perpetual Support you have the option of adding a Four Cornerstone Manager (FCM) for the epitome of continuity. Acting as your voice within Four Cornerstone, your FCM will proactively ensure you get the most out of our support services. The FCM services include the following:

• Single Point of Contact to Four Cornerstone
• Trusted Relationship for Success
• Proactive Customer and Case Management
• Weekly Status Calls with Customer
• Quarterly Onsite Customer Visits
• Scheduled Customer Environment and Performance Review

Your FCM is your go-to resource for any support issues. FCM are highly skilled professionals that help ensure that your issues get resolved quickly by proactively facilitating support services. By working closely with your team, you will develop a personalized support relationship with Four Cornerstone. The FCM builds a relationship with your team and a detailed understanding of your IT infrastructure and IT priorities. This relationship and continuity builds up trust and knowledge that helps the FCM anticipate your IT requirements and ensure your needs are met.

Proactive Customer and Case Management

The FCM works in partnership with your team to manage open incidents and help identify and address issues proactively, which can reduce the risk of downtime and interruption of your business critical systems. The FCM will keep you abreast of upcoming product developments as they relate to your specific needs, and recommend appropriate updates and upgrades.

Weekly Status Call

The FCM will schedule, manage, and execute weekly status calls with your team. The agenda is flexible and tailored to your needs. This enables the FCM to proactively manage your support resource requirements and manage known incidents.

Quarterly Onsite Visits

The FCM will schedule a quarterly on-site visit to gain a unique understanding of your environment. The agenda is flexible and tailored to your needs and can include strategic advice and technology recommendations based on Four Cornerstone experience.

Annual Performance Reviews

The FCM will schedule an annual on-site visit to review the customer's database environment in order to suggest any improvements, updates, upgrades and/or performance enhancements that would be beneficial to the customer. The FCM may bring additional Four Cornerstone resources, with the approval of the customer, to help facilitate and optimize the review session. The review will be delivered in verbal format during the engagement, and will be followed by a written summary report with any proposed actions and suggestions.

Enterprise Exigency Support

For most organizations round-the-clock availability is cost prohibitive. Many resident IT organizations often find their resources spread thin in their pursuit of both cost effective, as well as competent database support. For those customers who would rather a pay-as-you-go service, we offer an intermediate level - one in which you pay for only those hours you require, and you use these resources on projects of your choosing. Our Exigency Services provide you with the same level of technical excellence of our Perpetual Services with the added flexibility of using your newly acquired resources only when you choose.

We can arrange a custom solution of prepaid services that will augment your current staff. Competent Oracle database technicians can be placed at your disposal for those short-term situations such as staff members' absences, new or ongoing long-term project support, and anything in between. Our personnel can be scheduled to provide backup support for off-hours, holidays, vacation, and sick days - as well as during manpower intensive situations.

Our staff can also assist with your new projects, including those with aggressive timetables, as well as specific Oracle background requirements. We can help eliminate the challenge of finding capable resources for that demanding project, leaving your management staff free to focus on the project priorities – an error free result, on-schedule, and within budget. You can confidently focus on the “what's” and “where's” of the project, knowing the “who's” and “how's” are covered by our capable personnel

Our prorated solution enables you to:

• Eliminate the both the time consuming and often frustrating process of evaluating short-term qualified employees.
• Reduce operating costs by paying for only what you need, and only when you need it.
• The piece of mind in knowing your have access to trusted resources when you need
• A win-win-win situation!

Enterprise Critical System Response

Four Cornerstone provides emergency Oracle support for all Oracle databases. Our DBA911 program provides DBA Emergency Database Support which connects you with our DBA experts to remedy your emergency database problems. This service level is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

We have Oracle-certified DBA's and Oracle experts available and ready to assist with all Oracle database emergencies from minor problems to severe outages such as crashed Oracle database, Oracle database recovery, Oracle corruption, and emergency Oracle technical assistance. We realize that a severe problem with your database environment can have critical impact on business continuity and our DBA911 team is waiting to assist.

Remote & Critical Customer / Client Requirements:

All clients will be required to provide a mechanism for secure external access to their Oracle database servers, either via dedicated dial-in or secure connections over the Internet. The client must also possess a valid Oracle CSI number for access to Oracle Technical Support.

The client must have a test instance that is a faithful representation of the production schema and statistics, and use their test instance for the development and testing of all changes to the production Oracle system.