BROOMFIELD - "The right skills on right task at the right price."

That's the promise datAvail Corp. makes to the small- and mid-size businesses that rely on it for remote management of their mission-critical databases.

datAvail's 50 customers pay an average of $10,000 per month for what president and chief executive Mike Jones describes as "the care, feeding and health of the database."

"Companies that use their databases to generate revenue can't afford downtime," Jones said. By the time annual revenues linked to the database reach $15 million to $20 million, he added, a company probably has outgrown the generalist skills of its internal information technology staff.

At that point executives can hire someone to be the on-site database administrator, or they can use remote database administration.

Database administrators are "a high-risk hire," Jones said, "Because they're very technical, and the hiring manager usually isn't."

In selecting an employee or consultant to manage a database, executives may have to assess the relevance and the worth of certifications, training and experience they're not in a position to judge accurately.

Once hired, database administrators present management challenges. Those with experience and know-how want to work on leading-edge issues, not routine tasks. They're mobile, too, and are able to jump to opportunities that offer greater professional interest or more pay. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, projects 37 percent growth in employment of database administrators between 2006 and 2016.

When database administrators leave a company, Jones pointed out, they take "tribal knowledge" with them: valuable insight into how the business works and how the database supports the business, for example.

A company that hires a junior database administrator runs the risk that the employee will not be up to the strategic tasks or that on-the-job learning will result in costly mistakes.

In either case, burnout is a problem if one employee is constantly on call to keep the database humming seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

As a result, outsourcing database administration "has been particularly popular among small- and mid-size companies," noted John Longwell, research director for Computer Economics, an industry analyst firm based in Irvine, Calif.

"There is a lot of routine database maintenance that service providers with the right tools and processes can handle more efficiently than small IT organizations," he said.

The datAvail vision for outsourcing is broader, Jones said. The firm offers each client a team of people and a continuum of database administration skills that a small company is unlikely to find in one affordable employee.

The 55 datAvail employees in India handle "trivial but essential" tasks including monitoring the database, responding to service requests and installing upgrades.

In Broomfield, another 40 datAvail employees focus on the more strategic elements of database management, including budgeting and system architecture.

Different skill sets in different geographies command different compensation levels. According to the BLS, the mean annual wage for database administrators in the Boulder metropolitan region is just less than $70,000. Those in the bottom 10 percent nationally earn about $39,000 a year.

datAvail customers range from tour operator Apple Vacations Inc. to software and telecommunications firms. Local customers include Webroot Software Inc. of Boulder, which provides tools for Internet and Web security.

In the remote database administration business model, the customer's database remains on the customer's premises and under the customer's control. Remote administrators supplement but do not displace internal database administrators.

For example, HealthMEDX Inc., which provides software for nursing homes and other extended-care facilities, has several internal database administrators. Engaging datAvail meant the Missouri company's internal staff was no longer continuously on call. In addition to reducing burnout and attrition, this allowed internal staff to focus more on strategic concerns.

datAvail was formed in early 2008 through the spinoff of the managed services operations of Denver-based Stratavia Corp. Financial backers include Jones, three other individual investors, Boulder Ventures Ltd., and private equity firm Montis Capital LLC of Boulder. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

In June, datAvail relocated from Denver to Broomfield to take advantage of the fact that the Boulder metropolitan area has the nation's highest concentration of database administrators.

Jones said datAvail was break-even from the outset.

"We've invested in marketing, technology, and we've added staff," he noted. In 2009 he expects the company to its double revenues and staff and to achieve profitability.