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Proactive support for MySQL, because problem prevention is best

Late last week Open Query quietly launched its new subscription offering for MySQL support. Essentially, you commit to a number of hours per month for a number of months, and Open Query delivers appropriate resourcing. You can sign up for a minimum of 2 hours per month, and the cost per hour is quite low because a) we prefer to build a long-term relationship with our clients and b) the cost structure of Open Query enables this and we’re proud of it!

We’ve designed this offering to provide an equal arrangement between Open Query and its clients, and to be in line with our vision of education and “optimisation by design” rather than simply trouble-shooting. Years ago, Monty used to describe MySQL Support in terms of insurance, and that seemed reasonable at the time. It’s useful to have insurance, but when building a new house or renovating an existing one you’d be mindful of designing things well.

So for MySQL, you can get appropriate training, and engage an external expert to assist with this ongoing process, both through Open Query. Of course we can still help in case of trouble, but I think we can all agree that prevention is best (and cheaper!); another positive aspect of the subscription arrangement is that Open Query engineers will already be more familiar with your application and systems as they regularly look at them anyway – so if there are problems, the resolution process can become much simpler and quicker!

What do you do with your monthly hours, as obviously your needs will vary? Well, you’re allowed some shuffling of hours between months, and hours can also be used to sign up for Open Query training days and even on-site consulting. We encourage clients to make optimal use of their hours either with these extra options, or simply by utilising the available expertise. For instance, there is no hindrance for a developer or DBA to shoot us a question while they’re working on something, as it won’t cost you anything extra! You can also have us do a periodic health-check and tune-up, as well as slow query analysis with recommendations, or more serious DBA-type tasks like setting up or extending replication, backup arrangements, upgrades, and server monitoring. There’s a myriad of possibilities, so the hours tend to not go to waste but rather improve your overall business process!

In a nutshell, the whole arrangement is geared to give you proactive assistance. In terms of scope, anything related to MySQL is fine and we frequently deal with most of the LAMP stack anyway. We don’t mind if you have lots more servers, use replication, or need advice with queries or schema design for performance purposes. We even have expertise on MySQL 3.23 or 4.0 if you happen to still have those deployed; we know about the old optimiser quirks!

Open Query is self funding, debt-free, organically growing, and profitable since its inception. The business and services are designed to scale out in a fairly linear fashion.

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