EDB COE Solution Architect (SA)

 

Services Overview

The EDB COE Solution Architect (SA) is a dedicated  engagement designed to embed a Senior EDB Postgres Subject Matter Expert (SME) directly within your infrastructure team and grow your Center of Excellence. Unlike transactional consulting, the SA works as an advisor to your Database journey, providing continuous proactive guidance on Architecture, Enhancement , performance tuning as well as design guidelines for upgrades, new EDB products and services.

 

Scope of Services

The Solution Architect provides advisory guidance to your team with EDB Postgres initiatives. The scope is defined by a fixed capacity (days/term) rather than a specific project deliverable, allowing for flexibility in prioritizing daily tasks.

The SA will be available to the customer for 240 Working Days across a 1 year Calendar Term. 

Core Competencies & Activities:

  • Advisory:The Solution Architect (SA) delivers comprehensive advisory services for all Postgres-related initiatives. These services encompass, but are not limited to, the migration of applications to EDB Postgres, the architectural design of databases for newly developed applications, and the planning and risk assessment of major database upgrades.
  • Database design for business critical application: The SA provides critical inputs to ensure robust Postgres architecture and deployment patterns. These include inputs on high availability, Backup and Recovery, Business continuity planning, security and monitoring for even the most highly available critical systems.
  • Performance & Optimization: The SA will proactively collaborate with application teams to pinpoint and resolve performance bottlenecks, refine query execution, and implement effective indexing strategies. The resulting outputs may include enhancements to connection and session management, as well as necessary restructuring of the database design.
  • Operational Best Practices: Help define best practices for backups, security, replication, and failover/recovery procedures based on industry experience.
  • Incident & Support Acceleration: Support high severity database issues providing workarounds  to maintain service continuity and lead investigation on root cause identification in consultation with all other associated systems like application, middleware and hardware infrastructure.
  • Knowledge Enhancement: SA should provide ongoing knowledge enhancement sessions with DBA team of customers on a regular basis to enhance EDB postgres competency.

Scope Exclusions:

  • Direct Production Access: SAs do not directly touch production data or execute changes on production systems; they provide advisory support for customer staff to execute.
  • Non-Standard Hours: Work is performed during a standard working day. Work on non-working days, outside of the agreed shift (nights, weekends, and on-call rotations) are excluded.
  • Non-EDB Software: Services are limited to EDB-supported software; third-party tooling is out of scope.

 

Key Deliverables

While the SA acts as a staff augmentation resource, the engagement includes formal deliverables to ensure value tracking and governance.

  • Weekly Status Reports: Status of major projects and incidents along with suggested recommendations. 
  • Proactive Initiative: Progress on identified areas of improvement in Postgres technology, process and people. 

 

Roles & Responsibilities

EDB Responsibilities

  • Solution Architect: delivers technical guidance, attends leadership meetings, and drives root cause analysis of major incidents including proactive identification of bottlenecks of performance, break down..
  • Equipment: EDB provides the SA’s primary laptop (unless Customer policy requires a Customer-issued device).

Customer Responsibilities

  • Direction & Prioritization: Designate a point of contact to direct the SA’s daily priorities and tasks. The customer is responsible for defining tasks and activities.
  • Quarterly Review: Plan a quarterly review with the SA to understand and review objectives, progress, priority and next steps. 
  • Team Collaboration: Assign internal Postgres DBAs and senior leaders  to collaborate with and execute recommendations provided by the SA.
  • Logistics (if Onsite): Provide dedicated workspace, internet access, and necessary building badges within seven calendar days of reporting at site.
  • Software Licensing: Acquire proper subscriptions for all EDB and third-party software required for the engagement.
  • Quarterly review: Customer & EDB to have a quarterly review on the work delivered to date & share future plan.

 

Assumptions

  • Working Day: Based on 8 hours per day, Monday–Friday (or local work week), excluding local public holidays.The 8 Hour window should be a fixed slot between 9AM to 8PM based on customer requirement. 
  • Out of Hours: Any work outside the fixed 8 hour slot will draw down against the available working days at 1.5x rate.  
  • Background Verification:  EDB undertakes background verification by a global agency. Any additional background check by other agencies will have to be undertaken by customers at their cost.
  • Transition: In case of exit of Solution Architect, EDB will arrange for replacement. The overlap of handover will be for a maximum of one month.
  • Leave Policy (Long-Term): The SA may take up to 4 weeks (20 days) of Annual Leave per year. EDB does not backfill during this planned leave.
  • Continuity: Phases are designed to run on contiguous days. Pauses or schedule delays caused by the Customer will result in scope changes or additional fees.
  • Language: All communications and deliverables will be in English
  • Travel & Expenses: Additional Travel & Living (T&L) expenses, beyond the primary agreed work location are excluded from the offering, and are invoiced separately on a monthly basis unless otherwise specified.

 

Prerequisites

To ensure the engagement starts on time, the following must be ready by Day 1:

  • Named Point of Contact: A primary contact with authority to prioritize work is identified.
  • System Access: Remote network access (VPN), screen sharing capability, or physical access badges are provisioned.
  • Onboarding: Any mandatory customer-specific onboarding or security training is completed.
  • Work Space: Customer will ensure the resource has a suitable, dedicated workspace and WiFi/network access upon arrival to the working premises. 

  • Environment Readiness: The non-production and production environments are accessible for analysis (via screen share or direct view).