A database that keeps seizing up, backups no one has restored in months, a licensing bill that swells at every renewal? Our senior-only DBAs back Northeast Ohio teams, get to the cause rather than the symptom, and prove every fix with before-and-after numbers you can check. SQL Server is all we do.
Talk to a senior DBA
A senior DBA reads this (not a sales rep) and replies within one business day. No obligation.
You see the findings and the price before you commit.
By clicking, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Notice.
Rather talk it through? Reach a senior DBA at 1-877-891-1870
SQL Server consulting in Cleveland: the short answer
Red9 gives Northeast Ohio companies senior-only SQL Server consulting, performance tuning, managed DBA services, and emergency response, from downtown Cleveland out to Lakewood, Parma, and Mentor. We touch SQL Server and nothing else, and the first step on any engagement is a free 145-point health check. We keep 120+ clients on the books, from seed-stage startups up to the Fortune 100; for Managed Services and Emergency Services clients we answer a production incident inside 15 minutes, and each fix ships with numbers taken before and after the work.
Want a SQL Server consultant close to home in Cleveland? Book your free assessment.
Cleveland runs on regulated, high-volume data. Hospital networks, factory floors, insurance desks, and the region's chemicals and materials plants all lean on SQL Server, and each one notices the moment the database starts to drag. Those are the systems our DBAs live in day to day.
Cleveland is a medicine town. The Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals anchor a dense care and research economy, and their clinical, claims, and research databases run under HIPAA, where a slow query becomes a patient-care problem. We speed up that clinical and reporting work while access stays tight and logged, under DBAs who have handled HIPAA-bound estates before.
Northeast Ohio still builds things. Sherwin-Williams, Parker Hannifin, Eaton, and Lincoln Electric all run operations across the metro, and around them sits a manufacturing base whose ERP, MES, and shop-floor databases cannot stall mid-shift. We size and tune SQL Server so it holds its speed when a plant runs flat out. We have done exactly this for a building-materials manufacturer: see the case study below.
Cleveland carries real weight in finance. KeyCorp runs KeyBank from downtown and Progressive is headquartered in Mayfield, surrounded by regional banks, asset managers, and payment shops that move money and policy data under SEC, FINRA, and PCI-DSS scrutiny. We tune the high-throughput databases behind trading, underwriting, and payments, where a stalled procedure at the wrong minute carries a dollar cost.
The region is a polymers and materials cluster with deep roots. Avient runs its headquarters in Avon Lake, Lubrizol operates out of Wickliffe, and coatings and specialty-chemical plants sit throughout the metro alongside the utilities that power them. The databases behind formulation, batch, and quality systems have to stay accurate under load, so we keep them fast and dependable.
We work with businesses across Northeast Ohio: Cleveland, Akron, Parma, Lakewood, Euclid, Mentor, and Strongsville, and statewide across Ohio, including Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Dayton, over secure remote access. We fit the schedule to your calendar, working Eastern business hours.
Principal-level direction for a Cleveland team weighing a decision on architecture, performance, cost, or scale. We come in while the choice is still cheap to get right, well ahead of the point where it turns into an expensive rebuild.
From $4,995 / 20-hr block (hours do not expire)A remote DBA bench for Northeast Ohio teams that would rather not carry the role on payroll. Senior administrators watch, patch, and run your SQL Server day to day, so no one on your side is getting paged at 2am.
From $395 / moWhen production seizes or slows to a crawl, you get an engineer who has already fixed this failure mode, with a 15-minute response for Managed Services and Emergency Services clients.
From $2,500 / incidentWe hunt for the queries and indexes that are draining CPU, IO, and clock time, then rewrite them. We capture the numbers before we start and capture them again once we finish.
Version upgrades and moves to Azure SQL or AWS RDS, done with no downtime your customers would catch. SQL Server 2016 loses extended support on July 14, 2026, and 2017 follows in October 2027, so we plan the move well ahead of the date instead of scrambling after it.
A free, read-only 145-point health check across configuration, backups, security, and performance, handed back as a fix list ordered by what matters most. Run that same check against your own server any time you want.
HA/DR that actually comes back up, rather than a plan that only reads well on paper. We build and tune clustering and Always On Availability Groups, then bring in log shipping, replication, and Change Data Capture (CDC) for the times you only need the changed rows to move.
We get the database ready for the assistants your team wants pointed at it, ChatGPT (OpenAI) and Claude (Anthropic), and for the RAG pipelines, vector search, and analytics that load lands on SQL Server. Once reporting starts to strain the box, we shift the production offload, SSRS reports and Power BI datasets included, out to Snowflake, Redshift, or whichever warehouse you already run.
"I am (we all are) quite happy with results we are having today. Once again you have saved us from a potentially huge crisis. We believe our internal app has some serious problems and this has been happening for a very long time."
"Red9 SQL resource worked at night because the problem needed to be solved outside of production time. He inspired confidence in me, allowed me to inspire confidence in our customer."
"Nice. I saw our load times dropped again after the work you guys did over the weekend."
No months-long discovery, no handoff to a junior. The roadmap and the payback it should return reach you before anything else does.
We start by getting the real problem straight: which servers are in play, what the symptoms look like, and what the database has to deliver for your business. All of that comes first, before anyone pitches a fix.
The 145-point health check goes through how the instance is configured, whether your backups would truly restore, where security is exposed, and what is slowing queries down, then ranks each finding by impact. Curious before you get in touch? Point the same audit at your own server, at no cost and read-only, from our self-serve Health Check.
We take you through what we found and what it costs, one line at a time. You walk away with a ranked roadmap and a firm price, and nothing buried in the fine print.
Once it is clearly worth doing together, we work the roadmap and lay the before-and-after numbers out so the gain is measurable. From then on, managed services keep the box healthy so those problems do not resurface.
Each of these is an actual Red9 engagement, followed the whole way through. The figures are what each client recorded going in and once the work had bedded down. The names stay out of it because the clients asked us to keep them private.
The problem. The firm had a core reporting query that took about 6 seconds every time it ran and burned through 5,177,551 logical reads doing it. The IO was heavy enough to weigh on the whole instance, and staff sat waiting on a report that should have felt quick.
What we did. We captured the plan and the statistics, then built an index tuned to the query's filter and output columns so the engine seeks the rows it needs instead of scanning most of the table.
A tuned index replaced most of the table scan behind the report.
The result. The report comes back in half the time and touches far fewer pages, so the query stops leaning on the rest of the instance and the people waiting on it get their answer sooner.
What the review found. The reporting query filtered a large table with no index that fit its pattern, so nearly every run scanned the bulk of the table, about 5,177,551 reads each time.
What we changed (identifiers generalized for privacy):
-- Reporting query scanned a large table: 5,177,551 reads, ~6s per run. CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_report_lines_covering ON dbo.[report_lines] (/* filter cols */) INCLUDE (/* output cols */); -- rollback: DROP INDEX script provided
The tuned index moved most of the work from a scan to a seek: reads dropped from 5,177,551 to 3,243,572 and the run fell from about 6 seconds to 3.
The findings. An ERP-driven building-materials manufacturer had a production, reporting, and dev estate with a few weak spots. SQL native backups sat on ordinary storage that ransomware could reach and overwrite, the reporting server was not using the CPU it was paying for, and deadlocks and alert noise were higher than the workload warranted.
What we did. We migrated the SQL native backups onto immutable storage so a copy cannot be altered or deleted inside its retention window, retuned the reporting server so it draws on its full core allotment, and worked through the deadlocks. Deadlock and alert counts were tracked across the estate before and after.
across the estate once the reporting CPU and deadlocks were sorted.
The result. The manufacturer's backups now sit where an attacker or a bad script cannot touch them, the reporting server earns its cores back, and the ERP estate throws roughly a quarter fewer deadlocks and a fifth fewer alerts week to week. It takes far less hand-holding.
What the review surfaced. SQL native backups were landing on mutable storage with no immutability guarantee, the reporting instance was capped below the CPU it was licensed for, and the ERP servers were deadlocking and alerting more than the load justified.
What we changed (identifiers generalized for privacy): we repointed the SQL native backup jobs at immutable object storage with a locked retention window, corrected the reporting server so it uses its full core count, and tuned the queries and indexing that were colliding. Deadlocks across the estate fell 23.5% and total alerts fell 20%.
The problem. The distributor kept getting held up at the receiving desk. One stored procedure on its ERP handled every inbound shipment, and it had grown heavy enough to drag, roughly 687,157 logical reads on each call, worst exactly when trucks stacked up and stock came in fastest.
What we did. We captured the procedure's plan and its IO statistics, rewrote it, and built a covering index around the columns it filters and returns, so the engine seeks a handful of rows in place of reading the whole receiving table. We took the before and after numbers in one sitting.
A covering index replaced the full scan behind the receiving procedure.
The result. The receiving procedure runs about 40 times faster and touches 90 pages where it used to read 687,157. The storage it was burning is back for the rest of the ERP, so the desk keeps moving when a shipment rush hits.
What the review found. The receiving procedure filtered a large table that had no index fit for its pattern, so every call scanned the table from end to end, about 687,157 reads apiece.
What we changed (identifiers generalized for privacy):
-- Receiving procedure scanned the full table: 687,157 logical reads per call. CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_inbound_receipts_covering ON dbo.[inbound_receipts] (/* filter cols */) INCLUDE (/* output cols */); -- procedure rewritten to seek the covering index; DROP INDEX rollback provided
The rewrite and the covering index turned the scan into a seek: reads fell from 687,157 to 90, and the procedure came back about 40 times faster.
All of those results came off someone else's SQL Server. Let us find what is waiting in yours.
Get a Free SQL Server Assessment ➜Questions first? A senior DBA is on the line at 1-877-891-1870
Principal-grade SQL Server and performance experts run every engagement. We do not sit a junior on your production box to learn the trade.
One engine since 2014, with 10,000+ databases assessed and thousands of servers under our belt.
Every job closes with before-and-after numbers your own team can rerun and confirm.
Production falls over at 3am and a senior DBA is on it within 15 minutes, for Managed Services and Emergency Services clients.
Yes. Nearly all of our clients work with us this way, fully remote, and it holds together well. A senior DBA is reachable across your whole Cleveland workday on Eastern time, with 24/7/365 emergency cover beyond that for Managed Services and Emergency Services clients. You keep the keys: secure remote connections run through your own VPN or bastion host on least-privilege logins that you create and can pull at any moment, with extra security layered on top, and every change arrives as a script your team reads before it runs.
Where each option really lands when a SQL Server problem drops on your desk in Cleveland.
| Red9 | In-house DBA hire | Generalist IT / MSP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seniority | SQL Server specialists at principal grade, and only those, 15+ years on average, never a junior. | You lean on one person's knowledge, and each vacation or sick day leaves a gap. | Generalists for the most part, meeting SQL Server between a dozen other systems. |
| SQL Server focus | SQL Server is all we do. | Attention split across everything else on their plate. | A single line item on a long roster of technologies. |
| Emergency response | Round-the-clock cover, with a senior DBA answering inside 15 minutes for Managed Services and Emergency Services clients. | Whatever one hire can stretch to, minus their nights and days off. | A ticket line that runs into hours or days. |
| Proof | Before-and-after readings you can re-run at your end. | Rarely measured, and kept behind closed doors when it is. | Usually nothing you can confirm. |
| Cost model | Pay per scoped project, per retainer, or per incident, with no salary or benefits on your books. | A loaded Cleveland salary of roughly $125,000 to $150,000, before benefits and idle time. | Rolled into a larger bill and thin on genuine depth. |
| Ramp-up | Senior help working your server inside a few days. | Months of searching and onboarding before a new hire produces anything. | Slow to start, and each fresh ticket means briefing them over again. |
Get senior SQL Server help in your corner within days. Get a Free SQL Server Assessment ➜
Founder & Partner
25+ years making SQL Servers faster.
Chief Operating Officer
Chief Revenue Officer
Every Red9 engagement is staffed by a senior-only DBA team that averages 15+ years apiece, and a single lead owns the outcome personally.
We support Cleveland teams over secure remote access, across Cleveland, Akron, Parma, Lakewood, Euclid, and out through Lake and Lorain counties. Same senior DBA on the call whether your stack sits downtown, in Independence, or east toward Mentor.
We support teams across the metro and throughout Ohio. Explore the areas we serve.
Whoever you bring on, hold them to these five checks.
A team that works SQL Server and nothing else knows it better than an MSP spread over dozens of products.
Get it in writing who sits on your server. A cut-rate price tends to mask juniors practicing on live production.
Demand numbers you can reproduce: query duration, reads, and CPU, taken before the change and again after.
Have the response-time SLA, and who exactly it applies to, written into the contract before you sign.
Ask for real projects with real figures attached, even when the client name is withheld.
| Headquarters | Alpharetta, GA, in the Atlanta metro |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2014 |
| Focus | Microsoft SQL Server, and nothing else |
| Team | Senior-only DBAs averaging 15+ years each |
| Clients | 120+ names, from seed-stage startups to the Fortune 100 |
| Databases audited | 10,000+ and counting |
| Rating | 4.9 out of 5 across 120+ reviews |
| Emergency response | 15 minutes, 24/7/365, for Managed Services and Emergency Services clients |
| Engagement models | Scoped project, monthly retainer, or per incident |
| Service area | Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, plus nationwide over secure remote access |
Remote is enough for almost every Northeast Ohio client on our books, and it holds up. Red9 serves Cleveland and the wider metro, from Lakewood and Parma out to Mentor and Strongsville. A senior DBA connects over secure remote access and is diagnosing your instance within minutes, with a 15-minute emergency response for Managed Services and Emergency Services clients on top. What near me really gets you is fast, senior help wherever your server sits.
15 minutes, any hour, any day of the year, and a senior DBA answers instead of a ticket queue. This response-time SLA is available to current Managed Services clients and Emergency Services clients. See Emergency Services ➜
The starting point costs nothing: a free 145-point health check. After that, remote DBA and managed services run from $395/mo, a 20-hour senior DBA block is $4,995 and those hours do not expire, and 24/7 emergency response opens at $2,500 per incident. Set any of it against the $125,000 to $150,000 loaded salary a full-time Cleveland DBA draws in the comparison above and the math tends to settle itself. Bigger work gets scoped once the health check is in.
Yes. Clinics and health systems run on EHR, lab, and scheduling databases that get queried all day and backed up all night, so we plan maintenance around clinical hours, keep indexes and statistics healthy, and test restores instead of assuming them. Monitoring flags blocking before the front desk feels it. On the data side: yes, we comply with HIPAA and SOX, sign NDAs on every engagement, and carry cyber insurance.
We stage it. The new environment gets built and tested beside the old one, data moves ahead of time through backup restores or replication, and the final cutover is rehearsed until it fits inside a window the plant can spare. Backups land on immutable storage before anything moves, as in case #2 above where ERP deadlocks also fell 23.5%. You get a rollback plan in writing before we touch production.
We do, and reporting is usually where it hurts. Route schedules, orders, and invoicing all lean on a handful of queries that grow heavier as history piles up. We capture the plan and IO statistics, then build indexes matched to the filters the query actually uses, which is how the reporting query in case #1 above went from 6 seconds to 3. The instance stops paying for one report's table scans.
Broader questions on supported versions, platforms, and engagement mechanics live on our SQL Server consulting page.
Give us 30 minutes. We will show you where your SQL Server is bleeding speed, uptime, and money, and what it takes to set it right. Your free SQL Server assessment lands the findings and the number with you up front. If it stacks up for you, we keep going.
Schedule My Call Now ➜Prefer the phone? Call a senior DBA direct on 1-877-891-1870
