SQL Treeo’s founder and CEO, Danny Riebeek, reflects on his 20+ years in the IT industry. Q: What prompted you to set up SQL Treeo? When I talked to key decision makers – CEOs, finance directors and IT managers – about monitoring and optimising their SQL Servers, I kept hearing the same three things. They were looking for: Technical expertise Fast, reliable service Flexible, collaborative working relationships. I keep those three principles front of mind with every product we develop, every service we launch and every customer we work with. Q: How did you establish SQL Treeo as a credible expert in the market? We have always been a very technical company. I worked in IT, with databases, for many years before setting up the business. When formulating services and developing products that customers will want to buy, there is no substitute for technical skills. We are sector neutral: anyone who uses Microsoft SQL Servers is a potential customer. We work with everyone from call centres and insurance and energy companies to government departments and the maritime industry. They all value our highly experienced team of senior people with the hands-on knowledge to solve their problems. Q: Have you seen many changes in the market since founding SQL Treeo? Yes, definitely. All our customers operate in fast growing business sectors. They often need to change their tactics quickly and we need to be pragmatic and flexible to adapt. Of course, when something in IT doesn’t work, everyone wants it solved quickly. That never changes. We have the knowledge and expertise because we do this niche job all the time. Those specialist skills – plus our enthusiasm for the work – mean we are highly responsive. It enables us to troubleshoot problems and provide straightforward answers to our customers 24/7/365. Q: What are the most common database problems you come across? I would say that about 90% of customers’ problems are disaster recovery situations. The Microsoft system appears easy to install, so many customers don’t know they have a problem until something goes wrong. This is where our troubleshooting and process improvement skills come to the fore. Performance issues and slow systems are another common scenario. A sales or data input application, for example, could be taking three to four seconds to save. That might not sound like much, but over the course of a day, it makes the business far less efficient. Managing the huge amount of data our customers collect can also become an issue as they expand. They sometimes need a new application or platform and we work with them to design those. Or, we advise them on process improvements to boost efficiency or on how to consolidate their data to make it more accessible and reduce storage costs. Q: How can businesses minimise the risk of problems occurring? By working collaboratively with their IT providers. We work closely with our customers’ IT, maintenance and database teams and take responsibility for any problems – just like a team member. Auditing the environment, identifying threats and proactively maintaining systems also reduces potential problems. We help by turning our knowledge into monitoring services. For instance, they can call our Virtual Database Assistant (vDBA) and ask questions at any time. All our tools and products enable customers to manage their databases more efficiently. If they have a specific problem or goal, we can run bespoke workshops to upscale their internal expertise. Thank you, Danny. We’d be happy to answer any questions you have about how SQL Treeo can help your business manage and optimise your databases. We’d also love to hear your thoughts. If you have any topics, concerns or questions that you’d like us to cover in future blogs, please let us know. You can contact us here.

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