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1. How should I prepare for a DynamoDB design review?
To get best value from the time, it helps to write up some documentation and share (at least a few days) ahead of the review. A brief introduction to the application or the challenge (feel free to obfuscate some details - but some context on the kinds of access patterns you’ll need to cover is very helpful). A list of the APIs you expect to expose and/or the kinds of data operations you expect to support (for example “give me the list of invoices for user X, sorted by date) is terrific - especially if you can include some rough guidelines on which are going to be called most frequently vs only occasionally. Any operational peculiarities you’ll need to consider - for example, needing to provide a regular dump of particular subsets of the data for other parts of your business. If you can prepare the model you’re considering using a tool like NoSQL Workbench, export it as a file and send it along ahead of time, that is really excellent and will allow for rapid progress!
2. What are your rates?
My regular rate for consultation is $100US per hour (or part thereof) - or $650/day. Also available for retainer-based agreements (minimum 3 month commitment) - these arrangements will reserve my time for you at a discounted rate. If you are an enterprise customer of Amazon DynamoDB with significant monthly spend, consider that having me on retainer could drastically reduce your DynamoDB spend - easily paying back the cost of my engagement. The retainer time can also be seen as an investment in your own developer resources - teaching them how to use DynamoDB optimally in their future builds. For group learning sessions, speaking engagements etc, please send an email and we can figure out something fair together.
“Starving Artist” rate: If you’re an experimenter, working on a project for charity, part of a struggling startup, or just trying to build a personal “side-hustle” I have a deal for you! I’m setting aside an hour a week to help someone in your situation succeed with DynamoDB. I’ll meet with you for an hour to collaborate - assessing whether DynamoDB is the right fit, developing a data model, optimizing your design. In exchange for this, you need only post on social media mentioning High Bar Solutions and sharing something notable that you learned during the discussion. If you’re interested in this offer, please reach out - looking forward to meeting you!
3. Will you travel to work with your customers?
I’m open to some travel (expenses paid) depending on the engagement. Nothing beats brainstorming around a real whiteboard, and it’s fun to meet amazing new people and hear about what they’re working on. I’ve also become very adept at working remotely, so rest assured - that can work very well also.
4. Which languages do you speak?
I speak only English and Australian (haha!) - sorry. If you’re patient with me and you speak some English, chances are we can get work together just fine.
5. How do the data modeling sessions work?
Usually, I’ll use a tool called NoSQL Workbench to iterate with you on the design, and the result becomes documentation you can use to continue your work and share back with me for review.
6. How do the cost optimization audits work?
There are multiple options here. We can screen share from the AWS Console, or you can run a tool to collect information about your tables and provide to High Bar Solutions for analysis. The end result of the analysis is a report which will highlight key recommendations and allow you to prioritize by savings. A further possibility is to arrange for a periodic report to be automatically delivered to your team.