Database design for new applications, migration from legacy platforms, performance optimisation, and cloud database services. PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, MongoDB. Access database replacement.
We design, build, migrate, and optimise the databases behind your business applications. Serving businesses across Australia.
Every business application has a database underneath it. Your CRM, inventory system, job tracker, customer portal, and reporting dashboard all read from and write to a database. When the database is well-designed, the application is fast, reliable, and easy to extend. When it is not, problems compound.
A large portion of our database work involves legacy platforms. Australian businesses running Microsoft Access databases, FoxPro, FileMaker, or flat-file systems that have been critical infrastructure for years, sometimes decades. The business has outgrown them. Multi-user access is unreliable. The desktop interface cannot be accessed remotely. Reporting is manual.
We handle the full spectrum: designing databases for new applications, migrating from legacy platforms, optimising slow databases, and managing cloud database infrastructure. The database work is usually part of a broader application project, but sometimes the database itself is the project: migration, optimisation, or rescue.
Three stages. No surprises. Delivered personally by the founder.
Week 0
15-minute scoping call. We map your current setup, the requirements you need to ship, and the constraints (timeline, integrations, hosting). Fixed-price quote inside 48 hours.
Weeks 1–N
Application built incrementally with weekly check-ins. Every feature, integration and validation tested before sign-off. Sandbox / staging environment for safe iteration.
Cutover
Production deployment on a planned window. Team training, monitoring active, 30 days post-launch support. Documentation and source code handed over in full.
Design, migration, optimisation, cloud services, and legacy rescue. These are the database project types we handle.
Schema design for new applications. Tables, relationships, indexes, constraints, and data types planned before code is written. The database structure reflects the business domain, not the framework conventions.
Normalised schemas for transactional applications. Denormalised structures for reporting and analytics. Hybrid approaches where the operational database feeds an analytics layer. The design matches the workload.
Moving data between platforms: Access to SQL Server, MySQL to PostgreSQL, on-premises to cloud (RDS, Azure SQL), or between cloud providers. Schema mapping, data transformation, and validation.
Access database replacement is one of our most common requests. Australian businesses still running critical operations on Microsoft Access databases (inventory, CRM, job tracking, compliance) that need migrating to a proper web-based system with a real database backend.
Slow database? We profile queries, analyse execution plans, add missing indexes, fix N+1 query patterns, implement caching, and tune the database configuration. Most slow applications have a database problem, not an application problem.
Common fixes: missing indexes on frequently-queried columns, unoptimised ORM queries generating excessive JOINs, full table scans on large tables, missing pagination on API endpoints, and connection pool exhaustion.
Managed database services on AWS and Azure. RDS for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server. Aurora for high-performance MySQL/PostgreSQL. Azure SQL Database. DynamoDB and Cosmos DB for NoSQL workloads.
Managed databases mean automated backups, point-in-time recovery, patching, monitoring, and failover, without managing database servers. Your database runs reliably on infrastructure designed for it.
Access databases, flat-file systems, Excel-based data stores, and outdated database platforms modernised to proper relational or cloud databases. The data is preserved, the platform is upgraded.
This is the messy work that makes a real difference. A ten-year-old Access database with 200,000 records and thirty linked forms is critical infrastructure, even if IT does not treat it that way. We take it seriously, migrate it properly, and build a web application on top.
We built a multi-location analytics dashboard with live sales, inventory, staff performance and customer metrics across eight retail stores.
Read the full case study
Every feature your application delivers depends on the data underneath it. A poorly designed database creates limitations that no amount of application code can fix. Slow queries, data integrity issues, reporting problems, and scaling constraints all trace back to database design.
Investing in database design upfront is the highest-ROI decision in a software project. A well-structured schema makes development faster, queries predictable, and scaling straightforward. A poorly structured schema creates compounding technical debt.
We have inherited applications where the database was an afterthought: no indexes, no foreign keys, varchar columns storing JSON. Fixing the database improves the entire application without changing a line of application code.
A properly indexed database returns results in milliseconds. The same query on an unindexed table takes seconds or minutes. The difference between a 50ms API response and a 5-second API response is usually one missing index.
We design databases with query patterns in mind. If the application needs to search by customer name, there is an index on customer name. If reports aggregate by date range, the date columns are indexed and partitioned appropriately.
This is not rocket science. It is discipline. But it is the discipline that most projects skip, and the reason most slow applications are slow.
Foreign keys, unique constraints, check constraints, and NOT NULL rules built into the schema. The database enforces data integrity, not just the application. If the application has a bug, the database prevents corrupt data from being stored.
This matters when multiple systems write to the same database: the web application, the API, the import script, and the admin tool all respect the same constraints because they are enforced at the database level.
We have seen databases without constraints where duplicate records, orphaned rows, and invalid data accumulated over years. Cleaning that data is far more expensive than preventing it in the first place.
A well-designed database scales from thousands of rows to millions without architectural changes. Read replicas for heavy read workloads. Partitioning for time-series data. Caching layers for frequently-accessed data. The scaling path is incremental.
Cloud-managed databases (RDS, Azure SQL, Aurora) make scaling straightforward. Increase instance size for vertical scaling. Add read replicas for read-heavy workloads. Switch to Aurora or Cosmos DB for global distribution.
The database scales separately from the application. Your web application handles more traffic by adding application servers. Your database handles more queries by adding read replicas and caching. Independent scaling for each tier.
Access replacement, platform migration, performance tuning, and ongoing database administration. The support services behind your data.
Microsoft Access databases migrated to SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or MySQL with a web-based application replacing the desktop forms. Our most common legacy database project.
Move from self-managed database servers to AWS RDS, Azure SQL, or Aurora. Automated backups, failover, monitoring, and Australian data centres.
Slow database? We profile queries, add indexes, optimise joins, fix N+1 patterns, and implement caching. Measurable improvements with before/after benchmarks.
Automated backup configuration, point-in-time recovery testing, cross-region backup replication, and documented recovery procedures.
Database schema has grown organically and needs restructuring. We redesign without data loss, adding proper relationships, normalisation, and indexes.
Ongoing database management: monitoring, patching, performance tuning, backup verification, and capacity planning. Monthly support plans.
New database design, Access replacement, slow application, cloud migration, or legacy platform rescue. If one of these matches your situation, we can help.
Business-critical Access database migrated to a web application with a proper database. Inventory, job tracking, CRM, compliance: whatever Access is managing, we move it.
Database design for a new custom application. Schema, indexes, constraints, seed data, and migrations. The data foundation for your business system.
Application is slow and the database is the bottleneck. Query profiling, index optimisation, caching, and connection pool tuning. Often a 60–90% improvement.
Self-managed database server moved to AWS RDS, Aurora, or Azure SQL. Automated backups, monitoring, and failover without managing infrastructure.
MySQL to PostgreSQL. SQL Server to Aurora. Oracle to RDS. Schema mapping, data transformation, application query updates, and validation.
Operational database is too slow for complex reports. We build a reporting layer (read replicas, materialised views, or a separate analytics database) so reports do not slow down the application.
Access to web, on-premises to cloud, MySQL to PostgreSQL: the migration paths we execute most often.
The database engines, ORMs, and cloud platforms behind the applications and migrations.
Our default database for new projects. Advanced JSON support, strict integrity, excellent performance. Free and open-source.
The standard database for PHP/Laravel applications. Simple, fast, widely supported. Aurora MySQL for cloud-scale.
The default for .NET applications and Microsoft-stack businesses. Azure SQL for cloud. SSMS for management.
Eloquent ORM, migrations, seeders, and query builder. Laravel handles database management through code, with schema changes tracked in version control.
RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache. Managed database services with automated backups, failover, and monitoring. Sydney region.
Entity Framework Core ORM. Migrations, LINQ queries, and change tracking. Azure SQL for cloud hosting.
Our Access database tracked every job, every invoice, and every customer interaction for twelve years. It was corrupt twice a year, only one person could use it at a time, and our BAS reporting was a nightmare of manual exports. HELLO PEOPLE migrated everything to a web application with PostgreSQL. Same data, proper interface, three people using it simultaneously, and reports that generate in seconds.
PostgreSQL is our default recommendation for new projects: excellent performance, strict data integrity, advanced JSON support, and free. MySQL for Laravel/PHP applications where the simpler feature set is sufficient. SQL Server for .NET applications and Microsoft-stack businesses. MongoDB if the data is truly document-oriented. We recommend based on the application, not framework preference.
Yes. Access database replacement is one of our most common projects. We migrate the data to PostgreSQL or SQL Server, rebuild the forms as a web application (Laravel or .NET), and replicate the reports and queries. Multi-user, cloud-accessible, and mobile-friendly.
We provide a fixed-price quote after scoping. Simple platform migration (MySQL → PostgreSQL, same data) sits at the lower end of project size. Access database replacement with a new web application is larger and depends on the number of forms, reports and complexity. Enterprise database migration (on-premises SQL Server → Azure SQL) sits in the middle of the range.
Almost certainly. Most slow databases have missing indexes, unoptimised queries, or poor configuration. We profile the database, identify the bottlenecks, and implement fixes. Typical improvement is 60–90% in response time for problem queries. Quoted as a fixed-price optimisation engagement.
Cloud-managed (RDS, Azure SQL, Aurora) for almost every business. Automated backups, patching, monitoring, failover, and scaling without a DBA. Self-managed only when compliance requirements demand specific infrastructure control, or when the cost of managed services exceeds the cost of a skilled DBA, which is rare for small-to-medium businesses.
NoSQL databases suit specific use cases: document storage, event logging, session data, content management with flexible schemas. For most business applications with structured data and relationships, a relational database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server) is the better choice. We have seen too many projects use MongoDB where a relational database would have been simpler.
Yes. Monthly support plans covering monitoring, performance tuning, backup verification, security patching, capacity planning, and incident response. Pricing based on the database complexity and SLA requirements.
Yes. Beyond Access, we migrate from FoxPro, dBase, FileMaker, SQL Server Compact, Paradox, and flat-file systems. The approach is the same: map the schema, transform the data, validate the migration, and build a modern interface on top.
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Prefer a quick chat? Call 0425 531 127. We answer the phone in Perth.
