Series Week 2/52 - Managed Services: Why 24/7 Predictability Beats Reactive Firefighting

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{ Abhilash Kumar Bhattaram : Follow on LinkedIn }

How many times does a CTO truly understand what their DBA teams are into — especially when the most critical business systems lie in the hands of those very DBAs?

Every shift in a 24×7 Oracle delivery cycle feels like a different season:

Day Shift (Summer): The heat of peak business load — active users, live transactions, and nonstop application calls.

Evening Shift (Autumn): The transition zone — backups, scheduled jobs, and database maintenance routines take over.

Night Shift (Winter): The quiet deployment window — patch applications, schema changes, and unexpected ORA-600 alerts.

The Unexpected Storm: Unplanned incidents that ignore calendars and SLA boundaries.

Each DBA must understand not just the database, but the workload rhythm of their shift:

The temperature of the system
The timing of its stress
The signatures that precede failure

Seldom does a DBA truly understand the business — yet even small insights like tuning session parameters or anticipating upcoming transaction volumes can make a world of difference.

Predictability begins when:

Every workload is known
Every shift is prepared
Every incident feels expected rather than surprising

1. Ground Zero: Where Challenges Start - DB Problems

Let's understand some basic Database problems

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1. Ground Zero: Where Challenges Start                      |
|-------------------------------------------------------------|
| Common 24x7 Delivery Pain Points                            |
|                                                             |
| - ORA-600 / ORA-7445 errors appearing unpredictably         |
| - Slow response during business peak hours                  |
| - Night deployments failing due to dependency gaps          |
| - Routine jobs overloading batch windows                    |
| - Missed alert thresholds due to noisy monitoring           |
| - Ad-hoc tickets disrupting planned DBA tasks               |
| - Inconsistent shift handovers                              |
| - Non-standardized escalation or ownership models           |
| - “Hero culture” firefighting instead of predictable process|
|                                                             |
| >> Ground Zero is where unstructured operations live.       |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

2. Underneath Ground Zero: Finding the Real Problem

Digging more we see more dirt.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2. Underneath Ground Zero: Finding the Real Problem         |
|-------------------------------------------------------------|
| Technical Challenges                                        |
| - Unpatched bugs leading to ORA errors                      | Solution: Maintain disciplined patch cadence  
| - Lack of AWR/ASH trend analysis                            | Solution: Introduce daily workload heatmaps  
| - Skipped log monitoring                                    | Solution: Automate alert parsing and triage  
| - Inefficient backup/recovery scripts                       | Solution: Regularly validate restore procedures  
| - Poor SQL tuning hygiene                                   | Solution: Track top SQL by resource patterns  
|                                                             |
| Non-Technical Challenges                                    |
| - Shift overlap confusion                                   | Solution: Enforce structured handover rituals  
| - Absence of patching or change calendar                    | Solution: Maintain central, published change plan  
| - Reactive communication with other teams                   | Solution: Create pre-defined response playbooks  
| - Lack of business context in DBA decisions                 | Solution: Map workloads to business priorities  
| - Overreliance on tribal knowledge                          | Solution: Standardize, document, automate  
|                                                             |
| >> These underlying issues make predictability impossible.  |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

3. Working Upwards: From Understanding to Solution

One should not blame certain DBA's but an awareness programs to DBA's are needed , they are higly skilled and poorly mentored so the eventually become highly dis-associated with the oraganizational needs.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 3. Working Upwards: From Understanding to Solution          |
|-------------------------------------------------------------|
| Building Predictable Managed Services Operations            |
|                                                             |
| - Define clear workload baselines per shift                 |
| - Correlate incidents with business timing                  |
| - Automate recurring noise (jobs, logs, alerts)             |
| - Use real-time dashboards to guide response priorities     |
| - Replace heroics with routines                             |
| - Conduct weekly incident retrospectives                    |
| - Encourage “operational storytelling” in handovers         |
| - Measure MTTR and predictability as core success metrics   |
|                                                             |
| >> True stability is when your 24x7 operations stop reacting|
|    — and start anticipating.                                |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

How Nabhaas helps you

If you’ve made it this far, you already sense there’s a better way — in fact, you have a way ahead.

If you’d like Nabhaas to assist in your journey, remember — TAB is just one piece. Our Managed Delivery Service ensures your Oracle operations run smoothly between patch cycles, maintaining predictability and control across your environments.