Enterprise Oracle Engineering · Direct

Four decades keeping mission-critical Oracle systems fast, secure, and unbreakable.

Ashksoftware Inc is the independent practice of Kourosh Ashkon — a senior Oracle database architect who has spent a career owning the hardest problems in the data tier, from the mainframe era to today's AI-era cloud.

Right now, I'm leading the migration of a major sports enterprise's production databases to Oracle AI Database 26ai and operating a 7-cluster Exadata Cloud (ExaDB-D) fleet on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure — available for direct corp-to-corp engagements, without the agency markup.

40+
Years in IT
25+
Years Oracle DBA
98/100
D&B Performance Rating
30+
DBs migrated to cloud
2007
Incorporated

A career built at institutions that defined the field — and carried into the systems that run it today.

AT&T Bell Laboratories MIT Lincoln Laboratory Hewlett-Packard / Apollo Harvard Medical School Major League Baseball

Verified Performance

Independently rated. Federally registered. Ready to sign.

The trust an end client used to rent from a staffing agency — the vetting, the track record, the financial standing — Ashksoftware carries in its own name.

Dun & Bradstreet
Open Ratings · Past Performance Evaluation
98/100
Overall Performance Rating
Top quintile · SIC 7371
99
Reliability
99
Delivery & Timeliness
99
Responsiveness
99
Personnel
98
Customer Support
97
Cost Expectations Met
D-U-N-S® Number
80-862-5490
CA Entity No.
C3054982
CA Small Business
OSDS #39065
CAGE Code
4Y0P4
Established
2007
Insurance
GL · E&O · WC

The Practice

Enterprise-grade expertise, in an independent practice.

I'm Kourosh Ashkon, founder of Ashksoftware Inc. My work in software and data began in 1982 — early roles at AT&T Bell Laboratories, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Hewlett-Packard / Apollo, and Harvard Medical School — and has followed the full arc of Oracle from version 8 to today's Oracle AI Database 26ai.

For 25+ years I've architected, administered, and rescued mission-critical, multi-terabyte Oracle environments across government, defense, finance, healthcare, automotive, and sports. I'm the engineer organizations escalate to when an incident is severe and the cause isn't obvious — recently remediating two zero-day Linux kernel CVEs (one on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list) across a 7-cluster Exadata Cloud fleet using Oracle Ksplice, under change control, with zero downtime.

When you engage Ashksoftware, you work directly with me — the same caliber of specialist that agencies place at a premium, without the layers. Fully remote since 2015, serving clients across the United States.

Kourosh Ashkon Principal & Founder — Ashksoftware Inc

Credentials & Education

Oracle Certified Professional — Database Administrator (OCP)
Oracle RAC Certified Expert — Real Application Clusters (OCE)
SharePlex Replication Engineer — Quest Software
ERwin Data Modeler — Advanced & Basic (Computer Associates)
B.S. Computer Science — Boston University, 1994
Oracle DBA Master — Oracle Education, 1996
In progress (2026): OCI Foundations · OCI AI Foundations · OCI Architect Associate · Oracle 23ai Administrator Professional

Services

Engagements built around what actually breaks — and what's worth building.

01

Exadata & OCI Health Check

A focused assessment of your Oracle estate — performance, configuration, security, backup/DR, and cloud-readiness — delivered as a written report with prioritized findings.

Fixed-fee · fast start
02

Managed Remote DBA

Ongoing administration, monitoring, patching, backups, and on-call coverage for your Oracle databases — RAC, ASM, RMAN, and 24/7 production ownership.

Monthly retainer
03

Cloud Migration & Modernization

End-to-end migration to OCI and Exadata Cloud (ExaDB-D), non-CDB → multitenant PDB conversion, and upgrades through 19c and now 23ai / 26ai.

Fixed-scope or T&M
04

Incident & Escalation Response

Ownership of severe, non-obvious production incidents — root-cause diagnosis to change-controlled, zero-downtime, reversible fixes. My signature strength.

Retainer + premium
05

High Availability & Replication

Oracle RAC, Data Guard, GoldenGate active/active replication, ASM, and disaster-recovery design for systems that cannot go down.

Project
06

Performance Tuning & PL/SQL

Deep AWR/ASH analysis, SQL plan baselines, and reusable PL/SQL and shell automation that keeps large estates healthy with minimal manual effort.

Fixed or T&M

Selected Clients

Trusted by organizations that can't afford to get the data tier wrong.

From federal and county government to Fortune 500 enterprises and higher education — mission-critical Oracle work delivered directly and through Ashksoftware engagements.

Major League Baseball
Sports & Entertainment
LA County DPSS
County Government
Dept. of Veterans Affairs
Federal Government
Toyota Motor Sales
Automotive
Loyola Marymount University
Higher Education
Quest Diagnostics
Healthcare
LAUSD
Education
Ameriquest Mortgage
Financial Services
GovernmentDefense / MilitaryBanking & FinanceHealthcare Higher EducationAutomotiveSports & EntertainmentTelecommunicationsResearch

Track Record

Selected engagements across four decades.

2021 — Present
Senior Oracle Database Administrator
Tickets.com / Major League Baseball · Remote
Primary DBA for 30+ Oracle databases powering MLB's financial and ticketing systems. Leading migration to Oracle AI Database 26ai; operating a 7-cluster Exadata Cloud (ExaDB-D) fleet on OCI; lead escalation engineer for the highest-severity incidents, including two zero-day kernel CVEs remediated fleet-wide via Ksplice.
2015 — 2021
Senior Database Architect & DBA
ICL Systems Inc. · Remote
Architected and administered Oracle, MySQL, and PostgreSQL environments including 12c RAC and Oracle on AWS. Built active/active GoldenGate replication, implemented Data Guard standby, and led cross-platform migrations under 24/7 production operations.
2013 — 2015
Senior Oracle Architect / ETL Lead
County of Los Angeles, Dept. of Public Social Services
Designed a large-scale data conversion migrating 17 County programs to Oracle Exadata — consolidating heterogeneous sources (Unisys DBMS 2200, ADABAS, DB2, SQL Server, FoxPro) with OS- and database-level parallelism.
1982 — 2009
Earlier Career — Programmer to Senior Architect
AT&T Bell Laboratories · MIT Lincoln Laboratory · Hewlett-Packard / Apollo · Harvard Medical School · Toyota · Ameriquest · Cubic
Two decades of progressive software, systems, and Oracle roles across research, defense, telecom, automotive, and finance — including FAA/MIT weather-systems software, data-migration engineering at Bell Labs, and the transition into full-time Oracle architecture and administration.

Capabilities

Technical proficiencies.

Oracle & Cloud

  • Oracle 26ai / 23ai / 19c → 8i
  • Exadata Cloud (ExaDB-D) · OCI
  • RAC · ASM · Grid Infrastructure
  • Data Guard · GoldenGate
  • Multitenant (CDB/PDB)
  • Oracle on AWS

Reliability & Security

  • RMAN backup & recovery
  • Exadata patching · Ksplice
  • CVE / CPU / PSU remediation
  • OCI Data Safe · RBAC · SOX
  • Disaster recovery design

Performance

  • AWR / ASH deep analysis
  • SQL Tuning · Plan Baselines
  • Capacity planning
  • Scheduler / workload tuning

Development & Data

  • PL/SQL · Linux shell
  • ODI / OWB · SQL*Loader · SSIS
  • MySQL 8 · PostgreSQL
  • ERwin data modeling

The Direct Advantage

Same expertise. None of the markup.

Staffing agencies bill clients three to four times what they pay the consultant. That markup doesn't improve the work — it inflates your budget and puts layers between you and the person actually solving the problem.

Engage Ashksoftware directly and you get senior-level Oracle expertise at a competitive rate, with direct communication, single-point accountability, and the financial and professional standing to sign a clean corp-to-corp contract.

  • Direct communication — no intermediaries. You talk to the engineer doing the work.
  • Insured & incorporated — an 18-year California C-corp that places full commercial coverage for its engagements: general liability, professional liability (E&O), and workers' compensation, with clients named as additional insureds.
  • Independently verified — 98/100 D&B Open Ratings, CA Certified Small Business, D-U-N-S registered.
  • Flexible & remote — projects or long-term contracts, delivered 100% remotely across any time zone.
Typical Client Savings
50–70%

versus the markup a staffing agency adds to senior Oracle consulting

Contact

Let's discuss your Oracle environment.

Ready to start?

Whether it's ongoing administration, a migration to the cloud, a health check, or a severe incident you need owned — reach out and we'll find the right engagement.