The men behind the database

A client who understands technology

What makes the work at Maxxton special is that the client is an IT company itself. A large part of the technical choices around the cloud migration were made by Maxxton itself, in consultation with Qualogy. "They have a very good feeling about what we are doing," Bastiaan notes. "You simply have a goal you are working towards together." Franklin recognizes this and actively seeks that connection. "I try to put myself in the client's shoes as much as possible," he says. "I judge the work critically from their perspective. Sometimes you see that scripts we manage can also be written differently."

The coordination is consciously with Maxxton itself. Rob, CTO of Maxxton, is the fixed point of contact and project manager: he coordinates with the development team, with Google and with the customers, and gives approval for the next step. Franklin and Bastiaan provide the technical input and carry out the work. That single point of contact works pleasantly, Franklin finds: communication runs smoothly via tickets, email and, if urgent, a text message or phone call. "If it gets difficult, that just goes via the CTO," Bastiaan adds.

For Rob himself, it is mainly about equal collaboration: "We want a partner who thinks along, not just executes. Franklin and Bastiaan understand WHY we do something and not just WHAT, that saves endless coordination and ensures we really work together towards one goal."

"We want a partner who thinks along, not just executes."

Rob Sonke, CTO Maxxton

From on-premise to the cloud

The migration project is the project they both look back on with pleasure. Maxxton came from an on-premise environment with a RAC cluster and moved everything to Google Cloud. "The move to Google Cloud was just as strategic for us as it was technical," says Rob. "We wanted to get rid of the limitations of on-premise and at the same time be ready to scale up quickly when new customers join." For Franklin, the challenge lies precisely in that complexity. "This is a very complex infrastructure, with a cluster AND a Data Guard environment for high availability," he explains. "With other clients you usually see one or the other, not that combination."

That is no coincidence for Rob either: "Our customers expect 24/7 availability, downtime directly affects their bookings and their trust in us. That is why we consciously accept the complexity of a cluster AND Data Guard, for us that is not a luxury but a requirement."

"Our customers expect 24/7 availability, downtime directly affects their bookings."

Rob Sonke, CTO Maxxton

New territory it certainly was: no experience with the platform, a hard deadline and a first proof of concept to test everything. "You start with a beer coaster, so to speak, with a scribble about what you think it should look like," Bastiaan tells. "And it's nice to see that half a year later it really looks like that." Along the way they made conscious choices for the future: an upgrade from Oracle 12 to 19, a move to a multi-tenant architecture with container and pluggable databases, and bringing together schemas that were previously scattered. Where an Oracle environment comes with many ready-made tools, Google Cloud essentially offers a bare server, so backups and restore procedures had to be set up and tested by themselves.

Halfway through, the deadline for the proof of concept was threatened by problems during installation. Franklin put in extra hours to find the cause and handed over the work neatly to a colleague when planned vacations came in between. By arranging this in consultation with the client, the milestone was still achieved. For long-term management, they then set up a separate management server with Oracle Enterprise Manager, from which the backups and management scripts run.

Working with a team in India

Maxxton largely develops its software with a team in India. Daily collaboration mainly runs via tickets. When a notification comes in, Franklin picks it up as handler, or he passes it on to a colleague if he is not available for a moment. The time difference is rarely a problem: much can wait until the offices in the Netherlands are open, and a Dutch developer acts as a buffer for urgent matters. Franklin usually coordinates technical management choices with the Dutch contacts. In some cases they join a meeting together.

The distance does require a certain way of working. "I prefer to have technical discussions with people in the Netherlands, that talks easier," says Bastiaan, who compares it with earlier work for a team in Suriname, where language and culture were closer together. "With India I find it harder to estimate. When they say yes, I don't always know if they mean yes or no."

For Franklin, the most important lesson lies in that whole interplay: proactive action and keep communicating. "The customer wants to know the status of an activity, a malfunction or an update," he says. "If I let them know how things are going, it calms the customer down." It is an approach they take to every next client: short lines, being honest about what is going on and working together as one team, even if that team is spread across the Netherlands, India and cloud provider.

Meanwhile, they are looking ahead. New Oracle versions are on the roadmap, the environment continues to grow hard with new customers, and then there is the question of how AI will change their profession. "I know my work is going to change," says Bastiaan. "But that is exactly the conversation you have with the customer."