How Data-Sleek Optimized FCA’s MS-SQL Database for Speed, Stability, and Scalability
About Field Control Analytics (FCA)
Field Control Analytics (FCA), a leader in workforce management for the construction industry, faced mounting challenges due to an aging legacy MS-SQL database, resulting in frequent outages and sluggish performance. Seeking to enhance efficiency without a complete overhaul, FCA partnered with Data-Sleek to optimize its infrastructure.
The construction industry faces severe labor shortages, with 80% of firms struggling to hire skilled hourly workers. With limited resources and only a 1% annual productivity increase over the last two decades, construction companies must rely on digital workforce management tools to operate efficiently.
FCA’s platform plays a critical role in helping contractors optimize labor allocation, manage jobsite access, and maintain compliance. However, as FCA’s MS-SQL database began slowing down, these essential workforce workflows were increasingly disrupted, placing additional strain on already resource-constrained construction teams.
This made reliable system performance and scalability more important than ever — and is why FCA partnered with Data-Sleek to stabilize and optimize their database.
The Challenge: A Critical MS-SQL Database Struggling Under Growing Demand
FCA’s MS-SQL environment had become a bottleneck, causing recurring performance issues across the business. Key challenges included:
- Slow System Performance: Frequent timeouts, sluggish query execution, and long-running operations impacted FCA’s internal teams and customers.
- Outdated Maintenance Practices: Statistics were only updated through SQL Server’s auto-update feature — insufficient for FCA’s high-velocity tables. Index fragmentation worsened performance, and backups took too long to complete.
- Limited Monitoring & Visibility: Without a modern monitoring system or Query Store enabled, FCA lacked insight into query regressions, blocking, and system health.
- Storage & Backup Bottlenecks: Backup operations caused I/O contention, delays, and occasional failures. Recovery windows were too broad for operational needs.
- Internal Bandwidth Constraints: FCA did not have dedicated MS-SQL optimization expertise and needed a trusted partner to stabilize, tune, and maintain the environment.
If left unresolved, these issues would continue affecting uptime, user satisfaction, and FCA’s ability to scale their platform.
The Solution: A Full MS-SQL Optimization and Long-Term SLA Support Partnership
Data-Sleek executed a comprehensive optimization and stabilization plan—improving performance across FCA’s MS-SQL servers without requiring a full system migration.
- Complete Maintenance Overhaul
Manually updated statistics for all large tables (>1M rows).
Implemented nightly maintenance plans across all databases.
Configured 100% full-scan statistics updates to improve query optimizer accuracy.
Lowered index reorg thresholds to address fragmentation earlier and more frequently.
Impact: Queries began using optimal execution plans, dramatically improving response times.
- Performance Tuning & Query Optimization
Enabled Query Store across all databases to track regressions and force optimal plans.
Tuned high-volume queries to prevent slowdowns during peak load.
Fixed recurring index regressions and restored degraded performance.
Impact: FCA gained real-time visibility into problematic queries and eliminated repeated performance disruptions.
- Database & Configuration Enhancements
Enabled async statistics updates to prevent blocking.
Disabled autoshrink to avoid unnecessary overhead.
Upgraded database compatibility levels from 110/120 → 140 for SQL Server 2017 engine improvements.
Impact: The database engine became significantly more efficient, reducing blocking and improving concurrency.
- Storage & Backup Optimization
Reorganized storage: shifted backups and log files to improve I/O throughput.
Parallelized and striped backups for faster completion times (largest DB now completes in 6.5 hours).
Implemented backup compression to reduce disk contention.
Reduced log backup intervals from 60 minutes → 30 minutes for more granular recovery points.
Impact: Faster backups, fewer failures, and improved disaster-recovery posture.
- Modern Monitoring & Alerting
Installed and configured Datadog database monitors.
Enabled real-time alerting for blocking, query regression, long-running jobs, and system health.
Impact: FCA gained proactive visibility and could prevent issues before they impacted customers.
- Ongoing SLA Support
Daily SQL support for job failures, stalled states, and emergent performance issues.
Continuous tuning, monitoring, and regression remediation.
Training provided to internal FCA staff to improve operational confidence.
Impact: FCA now has a dependable data partner ensuring long-term database health.
The Results: Faster Performance, Higher Reliability, and a Stable Path to Growth
Through Data-Sleek’s optimization and SLA-based support, FCA achieved substantial improvements:
- 40% Reduction in System Downtime
Stability increased thanks to optimized maintenance, regression fixes, and proactive monitoring.
- Significant Cost Savings
FCA avoided a costly full system migration by revitalizing its existing MS-SQL environment.
- Faster Queries & Reduced Timeouts
High-impact queries now run efficiently, improving user experience across the platform.
- Improved Backup & Recovery Times
Streamlined backup strategy improved reliability and reduced I/O contention.
- Stronger Customer Satisfaction
Reliable performance reduced customer complaints and strengthened FCA’s reputation.
- A Scalable Database Foundation
The tuned MS-SQL environment can now support FCA’s continued growth without recurring bottlenecks.
🔗 Ready to optimize your database infrastructure? Visit our database consulting services.
Data-Sleek® is a consulting agency and a leading provider of comprehensive data management solutions. We specialize in data transformation, data migration, data integration, data architecture, data warehousing, and database consulting. Our commitment to client satisfaction empowers organizations of all sizes to unlock the full potential of their data assets. Data-Sleek is a trusted partner of Fortune 500 companies, dedicated to innovating and revolutionizing the way you do business.