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The world of database management is changing rapidly and has a huge impact on the way we work and think. The traditional database administrator, dedicated to full-time management, will increasingly give way to a coordinating spider in the web. Infrastructure advice, scripting, applying best practices in the deployment of resources, thinking together about the most efficient way of working instead of regular, manual management tasks. Of course, you could bring in such a database expert as a permanent employee, but you might be better off spending your time on things that will benefit your business. How do you select a good database support partner?

The cloud is popular, very popular. But the cloud does not exist: there are different cloud models – public, private and hybrid – and there are roughly three main types of cloud computing: SaaS, IaaS and PaaS. Part of PaaS is DBaaS. What is DBaaS, what are the pros and cons, and does DBaaS make a DBA obsolete? We give you the answers in this blog.

Do you recognize this? You look back at your work and see that you've spent far too long doing repetitive, boring, manual tasks that are not very sustainable. Moreover, their number only increases as the environment grows. As a Product Owner or IT Manager, this is also hard to understand. You only see that a team does not get around to producing deliverables in the development sprints. You don’t see them drowning in putting out fires and making manual database changes. How beautiful the world would be if the DBA could lean forward in DevOps teams, speak the same language as the software and system engineers, empower team members and act as a trusted advisor. Everyone wants a DBA like that! In this blog, we go one step further in talking about useful redundancy and how you can create a stable and secure work environment with the shift to Database Reliability Engineering.

A common complaint from DBAs is that they are very busy with everyday business, processing tickets and putting out fires. They find little time for optimization, self-development and innovation. On the other hand, a common complaint about DBAs is that they lean back and are not in the ‘cooperative mode’. Could one have something to do with the other? How do you overcome this?

In recent years, ‘someone else's computer in a different place’ is no longer a sufficient explanation of what the cloud actually is. Cloud-native has become a way of working. That doesn't just mean working ín the cloud, but it's about making full use of the technology that the cloud can offer. Issues such as scalability, efficiency, agility and cost saving motivate organizations to develop and apply more and more cloud-native technology. Martijn Wallet gave an interview at the KubeCon & CloudNativeCon conference in Valencia about how we at OptimaData apply cloud-native technology when working with clients.

Edco Wallet, co-owner of OptimaData, and friend Sjoerd Oskam participated in the Baltic Sea Circle Rally Winter 2022 at the beginning of this year. From Hamburg via Denmark, Sweden, Norway to the North Cape and via Lapland, Finland and the Baltic States back again. Without a navigation system, it was a true expedition. Why did they do this and what are the parallels with entrepreneurship? Edco explains in this blog.

If a red light on your dashboard turns on, most people call the garage - or the roadside assistance - with lightning speed. But if an application suddenly slows down, few people are inclined to do anything about it. That’s a missed opportunity. In this blog Martijn Wallet explains the benefits of having your database regularly serviced.

What is the result when you put a banker, a techie and an aerospace engineer together with the right dose of inspiration? Right, you get OptimaData, the full-service multi-platform data(base) service provider. In this article, Gerard Zuidweg, Edco Wallet and Martijn Wallet reflect on five years of OptimaData.

Our partner EDB helps organizations to get the most out of PostgreSQL. Joost Wasser, Public Sector Account Executive at EDB, and his colleague Aret Aprahamian, Partner Account Executive Benelux, DACH and Nordics, talk about working with OptimaData.

The popularity and adoption of open source software and databases continues to grow. Even the government is catching on. Yet there are still concerns about the reliability of open source solutions. How reliable is a product that is developed in all openness? Can't malicious people just get hold of it? Or does transparency make things safer?

UpCloud is an European cloud provider based in Finland that focuses on companies that need reliable, fast cloud services. In addition to cloud servers, UpCloud also provides other services, such as object storage and managed databases for MySQL and PostgreSQL environments. Because UpCloud and OptimaData have joined forces, UpCloud can now also offer custom solutions to customers with complex database issues. Jasper Jonk, Business Development Manager, talks about the added value of our partnership in this blog.

The FD Gazellen Award is a prize that Het Financieele Dagblad has been awarding since 2004 to the fastest growing companies in the Netherlands. We at OptimaData are very proud to be able to call ourselves FD Gazelle for the second time in a row in our five years of existence. In this blog Gerard Zuidweg, OptimaData's Managing Partner, tells us why we are honoured.

When you're just starting out with your IT environment, everything is still very manageable. But once you're a few years down the road, you might find yourself with a tangle of databases. Centralizing can be the solution, Eric Gipon tells us how in this blog.

Craig is an experienced DBA consultant with years of experience in large experimental environments with complex hybrid designs. In fact not very different from what he did as a civil engineer, he thinks. In this blog, Craig tells Femke more about his work and about his special passion for medieval swordsmanship. He also makes the link between creating a future-proof database and flying an airplane.

What has always surprised Gerard Zuidweg, Managing Partner at OptimaData, is that the profession of database administrator is often somewhat undervalued. And that while a well-organized database is crucial to any IT solution. It may not be the sexiest profession in the world, but it is one that should be cherished. In this blog, Gerard explains why.

Tino Dudink is one of our DBA Consultants and Senior Database Reliability Engineers. Earlier we looked into Tino's backpack. In this blog, Tino tells us how it is possible that after 25 years he still enjoys plodding through the depths of the database world.

We regularly get staffing firms on the phone looking for a full-time DBA for - say - a year. That's quite a lot. Are you going to migrate the whole world, I then ask. When I then hear what the request for help is, I think: surely that can be done much more efficiently. Where does it go wrong?

For the past six months, Thomas Brinkman has been conducting a research assignment at OptimaData. During the assignment, he investigated how a company like OptimaData can deal with the development around databases in the cloud and how they can function efficiently. What are his conclusions?

Ransomware attacks. They are becoming more common and have an increasing impact. In this blog, our colleague Thomas Brinkman discusses three best practices for reducing data loss with a good database strategy.

In our work, we encounter many companies and organizations with a mission-critical database environment that is managed by a single database administrator or where care of the database environment rests with a single application or system administrator. In many cases, that can be an excellent solution. And as long as there are no exciting changes and everything is functioning normally, there are no worries. And yet ... it just so happens that something goes wrong while your employee is on vacation. Can your employee with all the knowledge of your database also go on vacation without a laptop?