Find problems before they become outages.
Whether as a one-off or as part of an ongoing support arrangement, a health check and review is the most straightforward way to be confident about the availability and uptime of the systems your business depends on.
From £[PRICE] fixed price
- Independent assessment, no obligation
- Written report with a prioritised action plan
- Remote review included
- Access, SQL Server, MySQL or a bespoke system — it doesn’t matter which
Who it’s for
If you’re a director, an IT manager, an office manager or the person who ended up looking after the database because nobody else would, you’ll get practical support and guidance on improving efficiency, maximising uptime and reducing cost.
It earns its money if any of these apply:
- The system has never had a formal review
- Performance has become unpredictable
- You’re not certain the backups are any good
- It’s business-critical and nobody’s checked it in years
- You’ve inherited it and don’t know what state it’s in
- You’re planning an upgrade, a migration or a move to the cloud
- Someone has asked you to evidence your disaster recovery and you’d rather check first
Backups, and whether they’d actually restore
[IMG-1] — Lead image. A restore verification log: database, backup date, restore time, integrity result. Redacted. This is the proof the page turns on.
Alt: Database backup restore verification
Most businesses believe their backups work because the job shows green.
A job that completes and a backup that restores are two different things, and the gap between them is where companies get destroyed.
We restore them. Not read the log — restore the backup and check the data’s there.
We also check the backups cover everything (including the databases added since the plan was written), that integrity is verified so you’re not backing up corruption night after night, that retention matches what you’d realistically need to go back to, and that there’s a copy somewhere ransomware can’t reach.
What we work through
A comprehensive list of checks built up over many years of running clients’ systems.
Security audit
That the server is properly secured and your customers’ data is protected, with every exposure and risk documented. User accounts and permissions — including the ones belonging to people who left. Access levels, service accounts, encryption, and whether anything is being audited at all.
Troubleshooting
Errors, recurring problems and the mistakes that get repeated. The things filling your logs every night that nobody has ever looked at.
Performance tuning
Bottlenecks removed, structures optimised and simplified to speed up operations. Slow queries, indexing, blocking and locking, plus hardware, server and network configuration. You get the specific findings, not a generic list → database performance tuning
Disaster recovery
If the system failed tomorrow, how long until you’re working again, and how much data would you lose? We evaluate, test and document your current readiness for the worst happening, and update the DR plan.
Most people have never been given those two numbers for their own system. You’ll leave with both.
Report back
A full report detailing concerns, remedial action and improvements.
What the report contains
[IMG-2] — Right-aligned. A page of the actual report — the prioritised action plan, RAG-rated. Redacted. Nobody buys a fixed-price report sight unseen without wanting to see what turns up.
Alt: Database health check report and action plan
Executive summary — plain English, for whoever signs things off
Technical detail — full findings for your IT team, support partner or developer
Prioritised actions, sorted by what actually matters:
| Priority | What it means |
|---|---|
| Critical | Fix now. Usually a backup that wouldn’t restore, or corruption |
| High priority | Real risk, but you’re not on fire today |
| Recommended | Worth doing, cost-justified, not urgent |
| Ongoing maintenance | Things that should be happening routinely and aren’t |
The report is yours. Do nothing with it, act on it in-house, or hand it to another supplier — that’s entirely your call.
Whatever you’re running
The check is the same discipline whatever the technology. The detail differs:
Microsoft Access health check · SQL Server health check · MySQL health check
Mixed environment, bespoke system, or genuinely not sure what you’ve got? Stay here. Working that out is part of the job, and it’s the situation we see most.
One-off, or part of ongoing support
As a one-off — a fixed-price review, a report, and no obligation to do anything afterwards.
As part of a support arrangement — the check runs periodically, so drift, growth and new risks get caught rather than accumulating between crises. Systems don’t stay healthy on their own.
→ database support and management
Not sure you need one?
Thirty minutes on the phone, free. We’ll go through what you’re running, what’s worrying you, and whether a health check would tell you anything you don’t already know.
If it wouldn’t, we’ll say so.
☎ – contact us
What usually happens next
Nothing. The system’s in good shape and needs minor housekeeping. We’ll tell you that.
Ongoing support → database support
Performance work, scoped against findings rather than guesswork → database performance tuning
Upgrade, migration or modernisation → database migration · modernise existing systems
Case studies
Aire Valley Catering: four mobile apps, an Access business system, and engineers with no signal
Engineers working on customer sites across the UK can't count on having a signal, and the job still has to be recorded. Four production apps across both app stores, an Access and SQL Server business system behind them, and a roadmap that keeps offline working rather than trading it away.
View case study →Recovering audit and customer data across multiple corrupt SQL databases
Several customer databases became damaged and wouldn't open, putting audit records, operational data and customer information at risk of permanent loss. A structured recovery programme rebuilt usable datasets from the corrupt files and returned multiple customer systems to service.
View case study →ACC Worldwide: a faster SQL Server platform, noticed on day one
A business-critical system was working but slow, and staff felt it every day. Work on the SQL Server environment behind it delivered an immediate speed increase, and left ACC's own IT team with the logging and monitoring tools to keep developing it.
View case study →
Book a Database Health Check
Independent review, written report, prioritised actions — and your backups tested by restoring them. If you'd rather talk first, we'll give you 30 minutes free to work out whether it's worth doing.
Request a health check → Call 0114 249 1036 →