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How we work

A predictable, transparent process.

Seven steps from "things are slow" to "shipped and verified" — every step visible inside your dashboard.

dbtuneup five-step process flow
  1. 01

    Discovery

    15–30 min

    We start with a 30-minute call (or async write-up). Tell us the workload, the engine, the pain — and what success looks like for you.

  2. 02

    Access & sandbox

    Day 1

    You provide read-only credentials or a sanitised schema dump. We build a staging copy that mirrors production shape but never holds production data.

  3. 03

    Audit

    Day 1–2

    We profile slow logs, run EXPLAIN ANALYZE, pull pgBadger / MySQLTuner reports, and rank fixes by expected impact-vs-risk.

  4. 04

    Plan

    Day 2–3

    You receive a written plan: every change, every benchmark target, every rollback. You sign off before any write hits a real cluster.

  5. 05

    Stage & benchmark

    Day 3–5

    Changes land on staging first. We run before/after benchmarks on production-shaped traffic and verify replication lag, locks, and row counts.

  6. 06

    Cutover

    Cutover window

    For migrations: a logical-replication or dual-write cutover, typically under 5 minutes. For tuning: rolling apply with a verified back-out at each step.

  7. 07

    Verify & hand off

    30-day window

    Post-deploy, we monitor for the agreed window, deliver a PDF report, and leave the chat open for 30 days for follow-up questions.

Tooling

Battle-tested tools, opinionated choices.

We use what works on production workloads — not what looks shiny in a demo.

EXPLAIN / EXPLAIN ANALYZE

Plan analysis on every problem query, with row estimates vs actuals.

pgBadger

Postgres slow-log aggregation and time-series analysis.

MySQLTuner + pt-query-digest

MySQL config audit + query digest for the slow log.

pgloader

Lossless cross-engine migrations with type mapping.

AWS DMS

When you need ongoing replication during a long cutover window.

pg_dump / mysqldump + barman

Reproducible, validated backups — never trusted blindly.

Want to see the process on a real workload?

Start with a Quick Audit — you'll have a punch list within 24 hours.