Expertise
Database Administration (DBA)
Database engineering and administration for regulated financial institutions — led by an Oracle Certified Master with years of production experience in performance tuning, high availability, security, and migration. Covering Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL and the cloud-native equivalents.
Database administration in banking is not the same problem as DBA work in other industries. Settlement windows, batch cycles, regulatory reporting deadlines, and the audit trail expectations of supervisors mean every operational decision — index changes, failover procedures, backup retention — has implications beyond performance. Our practice is led by an Oracle Certified Master, Oracle's highest-level DBA credential, with years of production experience across Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL and the cloud-native managed equivalents on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
What we deliver
Performance tuning and optimisation
Query analysis, execution plan review, index strategy, statistics maintenance, and physical schema design — the work that determines whether settlement runs in 40 minutes or four hours. We focus on the workloads that actually matter to the business — overnight batch, intraday clearing windows, peak transaction periods — rather than chasing micro-optimisations on queries nobody runs.
High availability architecture
Active-active and active-passive clustering, synchronous and asynchronous replication, automatic failover, and read-replica fan-out — implemented on the patterns each platform supports: Oracle RAC and Data Guard, SQL Server Always On Availability Groups, PostgreSQL streaming replication and Patroni, MySQL Group Replication, and the cloud-managed equivalents. We design for the failure modes your runbooks should actually exercise, not the ones marketing slides cover.
Disaster recovery and backup
RPO and RTO design grounded in business impact analysis — not arbitrary numbers. Includes backup strategy across full, incremental, and log-shipped patterns, off-site and geographically separated replicas, encrypted backup storage, and the recurring DR tests that supervisors expect to see evidence of. We document the runbook so the people on call at 3am can execute it without needing the original engineer in the room.
Data migration and platform modernisation
Online and near-zero-downtime migrations across database platforms and into cloud — Oracle to PostgreSQL or Aurora for cost rationalisation, SQL Server to Azure SQL or Managed Instance for cloud-first strategies, mainframe to modern alternatives for sunsetting programmes. We treat data migration as a programme, not a script: dual-write where the source allows, reconciliation gates at every step, explicit rollback paths.
Security, compliance, and audit configuration
Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), column-level encryption, role-based access controls, privileged access management, audit log configuration, and data masking for non-production environments. Compliance configuration for PCI DSS scope reduction, GDPR data residency and right-to-erasure, AML data retention, and SOX-style audit requirements. Producing the evidence pack auditors expect is a deliverable, not an afterthought.
Operational support and capacity planning
Embedded or shared-services operational coverage with monitoring (Datadog, Prometheus, native cloud monitoring, vendor-specific tools), incident response, change management, capacity forecasting, and the regular operational reviews that catch problems before they become incidents. Suitable for institutions augmenting in-house DBA teams during peak periods or replacing third-party managed services that have stopped scaling with the business.
Why banks work with us on databases
Banking-grade operational discipline
We design and run database operations around the timing constraints that banking workloads actually have — settlement windows that cannot slip, batch cycles that have to complete before regional cut-offs, regulatory submission deadlines that have legal consequences if missed. Generic DBA services do not know what end-of-day batch is; ours do.
Cross-platform fluency, not single-vendor lock-in
Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL and the cloud-native managed equivalents. We are vendor-neutral and platform-spanning, so when a buyer needs migration advice it comes from people who have run both sides. Our recommendations are shaped by what fits your workload, cost envelope, and regulatory geography — not by partner incentives.
Migration without losing transactions
The same discipline we bring to core banking migration applies to database modernisation work: dual-write architectures where the source supports them, reconciliation rules at every cutover gate, BIN-by-BIN or portfolio-by-portfolio cutover for high-volume systems, and explicit rollback procedures. Most banking-relevant cost rationalisation programmes fail on migration discipline, not technology selection.
Cost rationalisation expertise
Oracle licensing is one of the largest controllable IT line items in many banks. We have hands-on experience with the technical work that allows institutions to right-size Oracle estates, migrate selected workloads to PostgreSQL or Aurora, consolidate database servers, and reduce the licence and support footprint without losing transactional integrity or performance.
Compliance designed in, not bolted on
PCI DSS scope minimisation through proper isolation and tokenisation patterns, GDPR-compliant data residency and right-to-erasure plumbing, audit log configuration that auditors actually accept, and the documentation pack that supports a Section 166 review or equivalent. The evidence is a by-product of how we build, not a project after the fact.
Embedded handover and knowledge transfer
A database environment owned only by the consultancy that built it is a liability waiting to happen. We design engagements so your in-house DBA team can operate, extend, and troubleshoot the environment after we leave — through documented runbooks, paired operational work during stabilisation, and an explicit handover workstream.
Related Services
IT Audit
Technical due diligence and audit work for regulated financial institutions — architecture review, database health, cloud readiness, application and integration audits, and pre-procurement vendor due diligence. Led by senior banking specialists with deep platform certifications, including an Oracle Certified Master and an AWS-certified Solution Architect.
Custom Rust Development
Rust development for the integration layer of banks and fintechs — ISO 8583 and ISO 20022 message processing, payment routing, and the components where memory safety and predictable performance map directly to operational concerns. A focused capability for the parts of the banking stack where Rust earns its place.
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