SQL Server · Azure · Human-reviewed AI
Hands-on database engineering for teams that need more DBA capacity—fixed-fee risk reviews, performance rescue, migrations, and fractional support.
Read-only firstFixed scope before workNo production change without approval
Designed for a specific buyer
Candidus Data Lab is built for IT leaders, engineering teams, and software companies running important Microsoft data platforms without enough senior DBA capacity.
Services
Each path has a defined buyer, process, and deliverable. The fit call determines whether the scope should be an assessment, a project, or ongoing advisory.
Know what can fail, what cannot restore, and what deserves attention first.
Find the real constraint behind slow applications, timeouts, blocking, or unstable workloads.
Choose the right target and migration path before cost, compatibility, or rollback surprises appear.
Senior database ownership and planned capacity without making a full-time hire.
See the decision paths
The visuals are not decoration. Each represents a decision clients need to make clearly: can we recover, what is actually slow, and how do we change platforms without losing control?
Three original visual stories—recovery, performance, and migration.
Connect backup evidence, restore testing, ownership, and business recovery assumptions.
Explore the risk review
Separate query, concurrency, configuration, capacity, and application evidence.
Explore performance rescue
Make compatibility, cost, dependency, validation, and rollback decisions before the migration window.
Explore migration readinessProduction safety
Database work earns trust through restraint. Discovery begins with the least access practical; changes move only after scope, risk, validation, and rollback are understood.
See how the risk review worksCollect configuration and workload evidence without changing the system wherever practical.
Use only the access required for the approved scope and work within your security controls.
No production change occurs before the plan, impact, validation, and rollback path are approved.
Findings, changes, decisions, and runbooks are documented so your team retains ownership.
Evaluate before you engage
Use three ungated proof paths to understand the method, the deliverable, and the person accountable for the work.
Answer ten practical questions in your browser. No email, account, or data submission required.
Take the free risk score 02 / INSPECTReview a clearly labelled, fictional sample showing evidence, business exposure, ownership, and next actions.
Inspect the sample report 03 / VERIFYReview the experience boundary, areas of depth, delivery principles, and direct-accountability model.
About the practiceEvidence, not theater
These are representative areas of the principal engineer’s hands-on professional experience. They are intentionally not presented as named Candidus Data Lab client case studies.
Hands-on work across multi-terabyte, business-critical database platforms.
Always On availability groups, clustering, replication, log shipping, backup, recovery, and continuity planning.
SQL Server upgrades, migrations, environment refreshes, and Azure platform decisions.
Knowledge workflows and operational automation with an approval gate around production-impacting actions.
AI-augmented database operations
AI can help interrogate evidence, draft diagnostics and automation, organize operational knowledge, and explore SQL Server 2025 or Azure SQL capabilities. Every output is grounded, reviewed, tested, and kept behind the same approval gates as any other production work.
Who you work with
Principal Database Engineer
Every engagement draws on more than 15 years of hands-on SQL Server, Azure, data engineering, and technical leadership experience. The work spans performance, high availability, disaster recovery, migrations, automation, governance, and enterprise AI operations.
You work directly with the person scoping, analyzing, implementing, documenting, and explaining the work—without junior substitutions or account-management handoffs.
Engagement process
No hourly ambiguity and no hidden handoff. Every engagement follows the same decision path.
Twenty minutes to understand the environment, urgency, and desired outcome.
If it is a fit, receive the deliverables, boundaries, assumptions, and fixed quote—normally within 24–48 hours.
Evidence first, approval gates around changes, and progress communicated in plain language.
Findings, changes, validation, and next actions are documented for your team.
FAQ
If your question is not here, send it directly. Every inquiry receives a response within one business day.
Send a project briefThe principal database engineer scopes and delivers every engagement directly. There are no junior substitutions or sales-to-delivery handoffs.
Not always. Depending on scope and policy, your team may run approved diagnostic collection and provide the results. When access is required, the engagement uses the least privilege practical.
No production change is made without an approved scope and change plan. The flagship risk review is read-only first and separates findings from remediation.
Engagements are confidential by default, NDA support is available, and proprietary details are not used as marketing material without written permission.
Urgent availability and response commitments are confirmed in writing before an engagement. The site does not promise an automatic 24/7 SLA.
The fit call is free. If the work is a fit, you receive a written fixed-fee scope before work begins—deliverables, assumptions, boundaries, and price included.
AI may assist analysis, documentation, or knowledge workflows when appropriate, but recommendations are human-reviewed. Sensitive data is not placed into an unapproved AI service.
Start with clarity
In twenty minutes, you will know whether Candidus is the right fit and what the next safe step should be.
Free · No preparation required · No obligation