For agencies and consultancies
MySQL expertise for your client projects.
Bring in a specialist for a focused database investigation while your team keeps the client relationship and delivery ownership.
When outside expertise helps
- A client's MySQL, MariaDB or Aurora MySQL system is slow and your team cannot yet say why.
- A proposed database change needs an independent second opinion before the client commits to it.
- Your own database specialist is fully booked and a focused question needs attention now.
- A client asks for a written, evidence-based assessment from a database specialist.
A diagnostic, not subcontracted development
This is not extra development capacity. It is a bounded investigation of one agreed database question, delivered as a written report and a technical handover.
Your agency owns client delivery and the implementation. I own the agreed investigation and the report. The findings are written so your engineers can plan and carry out the changes as part of your own delivery work, with validation steps to show whether each change helped.
Who is responsible for what
A typical split. The actual responsibilities are set in the engagement agreement; this table does not replace it.
| Area | Agency / customer | DB-Ex |
|---|---|---|
| Client relationship and commercial delivery | Retains ownership | Respects the agreed communication boundaries |
| Scope and evidence | Supplies context and authorised material | Defines evidence needs and feasibility |
| Investigation | Provides clarifications | Performs the agreed analysis |
| Written findings and handover | Reviews the findings | Produces and explains the deliverable |
| Implementation and production approval | Retains ownership | Recommends tests and changes within scope |
The diagnostic
Customer approval for involving a specialist, access controls, confidentiality and any subcontracting requirements follow your contract with the client and are agreed in writing before work starts. There is no emergency or on-call cover and no open-ended client support.
How a partnership engagement runs
- Discuss the project
- Agree scope and permissions
- Review the evidence
- Deliver findings and handover
Work is scheduled and bounded. Scope, customer permissions, evidence, communication and the handover format are agreed before it starts, together with a fixed fee and a schedule.
What your team receives
The same report structure as any diagnostic. The public sample shows it in full.
Illustrative sample
Slow order history in a multi-tenant application
Why does the order-history page become slow for some tenants, and what should the team test first?
- No index matches the filter and sort together
- Deep pages use OFFSET
- The slow tenants' execution plans are missing
Capture execution plans and statement statistics for two large tenants.
Synthetic MySQL scenario; no customer data or measured results.
Read the MySQL sample →Questions from agencies
Can work be coordinated through the agency?
Yes. Communication can run through your team, with the report and handover delivered to you. How the customer is involved is agreed at the start of each engagement.
Can the specialist join a client discussion when agreed?
Yes, when you and your client want that — for example to clarify the question at the start or to walk through the findings at the end.
Who performs the implementation?
Your team or the customer. The engagement delivers the investigation, written findings, prioritised recommendations and a handover. Hands-on implementation is only included if it is separately and explicitly agreed.
What access is needed?
It depends on the question. Many investigations work from evidence collected by your team: sanitised queries, execution plans, metrics and configuration. Any direct access needs the customer's approval and is agreed before work starts.
What if the agency already has database expertise?
That usually makes the engagement more efficient. The diagnostic can serve as a second opinion on a specific question, or take one investigation off a busy specialist's plate.
Is this suitable for a second opinion or an overflow requirement?
Yes, as long as the question is defined and the work can be scheduled. It is not suited to open-ended capacity, on-call cover or emergency response.
How are confidentiality and permissions handled?
They are agreed in writing for each engagement, in line with your contract with the customer — including any confidentiality agreement, the customer's approval for involving a specialist, and how evidence is shared and retained.
Have a client project with a database question?
Describe the client's system, the problem and what your team needs to find out. No client-identifying details are needed at this stage.