Experience

• Microsoft SQL Server (Expert)
• MySQL
• IBM DB2 (AS400)
• Oracle

• Transactional
• Reporting
• Data Warehouse

• e-Commerce / Shopping
• Customer Relationship Management
• Content Management Systems
• Financial
• Legal & Government

Services Available

I can gather requirements and build your database from scratch, or work with your staff to perfect an existing design. Feel confident in your solution but need an expert to verify - I'll be happy to review it and identify any areas that may not be in line with best practices.

Database growing too fast? Poor performance? Not meeting your needs? Application developers and DBAs pointing fingers? I can, and have, reviewed production systems for:

• performance considerations
• proper database design
• efficient data type choices
• appropriate network and disk traffic
• maintenance and recovery plans
• and best practices for interacting with the application layer

SQL Server Reporting Services, Telerik Reports, Crystal Reports
Data staging / ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load)
Auditing transactions in computer time and real time

Data-marts, consolidated reporting of all company systems

SQL Server Versions and Products

• 2000, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2019
• Integration Services (SSIS)
• Analysis Services (SSAS)
• Reporting Services (SSRS)
• SQLXML, Service Broker
• Mirroring, Failover Clustering

Mobile Websites

HTML5 and CSS3, along with responsive design have made mobile versions of websites easier to develop and more powerful than ever. Some businesses even design "mobile-first", and do the desktop version afterward.

A mobile-optimized website will work on nearly all smartphones, and you only need to develop one. Compare this to mobile apps, where each platform needs its own version developed. Or for the broadest reach, develop for the major mobile providers and back it up with a mobile website too.

I am current in the latest technologies and strategies, and instead of forcing your site into the mold I prefer, can evaluate the situation and do the work that's best for your site and your business.

Mobile Applications

Although mobile versions of websites are becoming more powerful, there are still some things only a native mobile application can do. Graphics-intensive applications (e.g. Angry Birds), GPS applications, and background applications are all good options for a mobile application.

Android

I have been working with the Android platform since version 2. One of the apps was a GPS tracker and used for medical personnel dispatching. Another provides election information to users, including candidate information, finding a polling place, and live results on election day.

For design, I can do it myself, but most customers prefer to have a graphic artists or their marketing team come up with the design that I then convert into a full-fledged application.

iOS, Blackberry

I do not develop these myself; however, I work with an excellent developer to provide these for my customers. All of the information gathered for the Android app will be passed on to the iOS developer, and the back-end services that the phone applications use will work for both platforms.

Once upon a time these phones had significant market share, and I have developed applications for them. If you work in a field that requires them, I can provide you a solution.

Overview

The "cloud" term is overused and can refer to several different scenarios. But they all share in common that the networking, software, or website services are being provided at a location not owned by your company. If you're a small business that can't afford onsite IT, or a true server room, or needs redundancy, then cloud services may be right for you.

Here are the three types that I work with most often: virtual private servers, co-location, and cloud services.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS)

For solutions that can run on a single server and don't need redundancy, VPS is a great low-cost solution. The server runs in their environment, there are no licensing costs, and they usually have redundanct internet connections for high availability. There are many providers, GoDaddy being a decent one.

I currently support several VPS solutions, and also use it for my test server

Co-Location / Hosting Facility

For more complex solutions requiring multiple servers, firewalls, and/or switches, hosting facilities provide a rack for all your servers and provide a secure locatoin, cooling, power, and internet. You pay based on how many racks are needed, and how much internet bandwidth. Hardware cost, licensing, and configuration are all handled by your IT. It's preferable to have the facility close to your IT guy; there are lots of them in Phoenix and Las Vegas, so that works well if I am your IT support.

The facilities typically have high-availability internet and power backup; however, all of your equipment is still in one location. A natural disaster or hardware failure can take the system down.

Cloud Services

There are not any hardware or licensing costs with most of these, and they can provide any sort of network, office, or software solution. What makes a cloud solution "true" for me is that it offers scalability and geographic redundancy. For a cost, you can pay to have your system copied in real-time to servers on other continents. If you serve customers around the world, they will get faster results from a system closer to them.

If your traffic/demand varies greatly from one day/hour to the next, rather than buying a server powerful enough to handle the high demand times which is then wasted during low-demand times, with cloud scalability you can only pay for what is needed. Resources will increase/decrease with demand. Most applications have to be changed, or designed, with this scalability in mind, and that is something I can do.

Amazon Services, Google, and Microsoft Azure are the big cloud service providers. I am very familiar with creating solutions to run on Microsoft Azure.