Consulting Fees & Engagement Formats
We structure our consulting around clear milestones, rigorous technical deliverables, and fixed scope engagements. No vague hourly billing, unexpected overages, or hidden retainers.
Database Architecture & Migration Feasibility Audit
A focused 2-week diagnostic engagement to analyze current schema constraints, identify locking bottlenecks, and establish a realistic migration strategy.
- Catalog of table locking risks and dependency chains
- Network throughput and backfill duration estimates
- Recommended migration pattern (CDC vs dual-write vs logical replication)
- Executive risk analysis and remediation checklist
Full Migration Blueprint & Execution Architecture
Our flagship comprehensive engagement delivering complete schema transformation specs, CDC/dual-write code templates, validation scripts, and a minute-by-minute cutover runbook.
- Complete entity mapping and schema translation specifications
- Dual-write synchronization code and backfill orchestration scripts
- Automated chunked checksum validation tooling
- Dry-run simulation oversight on sanitized staging data
- Step-by-step cutover playbook and rollback triggers
Live Cutover Oversight & Technical Steering Retainer
Dedicated senior architect co-piloting your staging rehearsal, failover dry-runs, and live production maintenance window.
- War-room rehearsal coordination and latency verification
- Real-time DNS switch and connection pool drain oversight
- Immediate go/no-go rollback decision gates
- Post-migration stability audit (48-hour monitoring review)
How Custom Engagement Scopes Are Calculated
For complex heterogenous database migrations (e.g. Oracle RAC to distributed PostgreSQL, or multi-shard MySQL restructuring), fees are determined during initial scoping based on four concrete engineering factors:
1. Schema Complexity
Total count of distinct entities, depth of foreign key constraints, partition hierarchies, and legacy stored procedure logic.
2. Live Concurrency & SLA
Write transactions per second (TPS), peak throughput spikes, acceptable write-pause duration, and cross-region replica synchronization.
3. Data Volume & Backfill
Total raw dataset size, table chunking feasibility, network bandwidth limits between datacenters, and backfill duration models.
4. Cutover War-Room Level
Level of direct technical steering required during live rehearsals, DNS switchover, and overnight production maintenance windows.
Engagement FAQ
Do we need to grant direct access to production database credentials?
No. We do not require access to raw production data. We work with sanitized schema definitions (DDL dumps), synthetic test datasets, and query statistics. All validation and backfill scripts are delivered directly into your version control for internal execution.
What payment schedules and currency terms do you accept?
Engagements are billed in New Taiwan Dollars (TWD / NT$) or US Dollars (USD). Milestone billing is standard: 40% upon engagement inception, 30% upon delivery of the architecture blueprint, and 30% upon completion of the staging rehearsal and cutover signoff.
What happens if unexpected legacy stored procedures are discovered mid-project?
During our initial diagnostic audit, we map all database dependencies. If uncharted legacy routines require additional refactoring beyond original estimates, we document them in an architectural risk log and provide clear options before any adjustments are made.