Cutting Postgres Delivery Timelines from Months to Days with EDB Remote DBA Service: Webinar Summary

Assuring Government-grade Postgres database performance to satisfy always-on demands requires highly specialized skill sets. That’s where EDB Remote DBA Service provides the expertise required to maximize Postgres database, tools, and extensions needed to meet agency-specific process digitalization, application modernization, and security demands.

But don’t just take it from us—hear it straight from a Government systems and security administrator with 30+ years of experience with the USAF, government contractors, and the private sector.

Mitch Baker has been an integral part of the Office of Technology Services (OTS) at the Legislative Services Agency (LSA) in the State of Indiana for 10 years. In a dynamic conversation with EDB Global Senior Director of Managed Support Services Kanchan Mohitey and EDB Vice President of Northeast Sales Joshua Spero, Mitch detailed the value his team realizes from the EDB Remote DBA Service. 

How EDB RDBA Service addresses Postgres pain points

The LSA is tasked with building open source Web applications used by Indiana State Legislators and staff, as well as providing all hardware, software, and support services. Mitch headed Postgresql deployment for the LSA when they migrated from SVN/MySQL repository. In his recollection, the agency’s Postgres migration effort succeeded, in part, through the initial EDB Professional Services delivered in the early days of the project. 

“We realized really quickly, when I started the 5 a.m. cutover that morning, that there were things we didn’t think about. We quickly used EDB Professional Services at that time to help us get things off the ground more quickly. Then, we eventually evolved to the subscription service for our production databases with the RDBA services.”

Post-migration, the LSA has assured optimal Postgres performance by accessing EDB RDBA Service subject matter expertise to help monitor, manage, and maintain Postgres service.  Baseline EDB RDBA Services provided to LSA include:

• Ensuring that corresponding remediation activities are completed after an alert is visualized
• Managing capacity planning and performance optimization to manage database growth
• Reconciling database and system contention issues
• Identifying and resolving database and index configuration issues

Realizing agency returns on investment 

From Mitch’s perspective, just because you’re a “Postgres expert” doesn’t mean you have the extended skill set required to help deliver uninterrupted, government-grade database performance. Mitch measures returns on investment in terms of operating expense control, staff oversight, and peace of mind.

“If we needed to do what the RDBA team does, we’d have to hire at least 2-to-3 more people… mostly Postgres experts… and those people are not cheap.

“Peace of mind is a very tangible expense, and I have good peace of mind that they are covering stuff and working on things that I don’t have to worry about day-to-day. It’s not just a database—they go way beyond that with their services.”

Specific examples of EDB RDBA Service going above-and-beyond database monitoring and supporting to the Postgres ecosystem at LSA include:

• Maximizing open source Barman disaster recovery capabilities
• Providing pgPool usage recommendations
• Running quarterly backup checks
• Performing log checks with pgBadger , 

Providing proactive Postgres management beyond the SLA

In managing Postgres database performance critical to State government operations, the LSA relies upon the continuous monitoring, configuration tuning, and proactive performance checks that the EDB RDBA Service provides to Mitch and his team. 

“My SLA is, basically, ‘Get back it back running as soon as possible.’ If something happens when a backend service drops off pgPool or the backup databases aren’t working properly, we’ve evolved to a point where they know they can fix that without calling me first. They get it up and running, and then the next morning we discussed what happened.”

Beyond the always-on coverage provided by RDBA service, the LSA takes advantage of: 

• Real-time access to their RDBA Technical Lead, EDB Postgres experts, and support resources over a dedicated Slack channel and immediate responses to queries about Postgres performance issues
• The EDB Support portal, which the LSA relies on as a go-to resource for Postgres knowledge base information, support ticket initiation, processing, and runbook references
• Follow-the-sun 24x7 phone-based support
• Weekly meeting review and planning sessions
• Executive-level EDB RDBA Quarterly Business Reviews prepared for the LSA management team
• Drill-down access to daily, weekly, and quarterly Postgres performance reporting

Learn more about the LSA’s success and ROI using the EDB RDBA Service—watch the on-demand Webinar right now.

See why public sector agencies entrust their database operations and service delivery to us—get started with EDB Postgres® AI.