About ASK Database Management

ASK Database Management came into being in early 2014. It is the brainchild of Art S. Kagel birthed as a vehicle to relaunch my independent consultancy. The overall focus of the consultancy is all things database. Taking advantage of 35 years of professional experience as software developer, systems analyst, database architect, database administrator, and business analyst I provide services to my clients that include Performance Evaluation and Tuning, Remote and Fill-In DBA Services, Active and Passive 24x7 Performance Monitoring Services, Training, Application Development, and Database and Data Warehouse Design Service among others. I have a further focus on IBM Informix and applications written to take advantage of that product. 


Who is Art Kagel?

​I began my computer education in high school and continued as an undergraduate at the Polytechnic Institute of New York with Post-Graduate work at New York University in Information Systems and Decision Support Systems. In addition, I have earned a degree in Business Management and Marketing from St. John's University in New York. I have been working with Informix products since 1983. Today I am one of the most recognized and respected individuals in the Informix user community. I am a recipient of the International Informix Users Group's (IIUG) Directors' Award and was named an IBM Champion for Information Management by IBM Corporation every year since its inception in 2009. I currently serve on the Board of Directors of the IIUG. 

I have served as Manager of Database Systems, a project leader on small and medium size project teams, and supervised technicians on a group and departmental basis. I have extensive knowledge of hardware and software issues and an affinity for understanding my clients’ business environments. My experience designing and developing software for such diverse environments as the personal computer, departmental systems, super-minis, and large mainframe networks gives me a unique approach to implementation and equipment selection issues. I have worked on projects in such varied industries as medical services, banking and finance, online gaming, telecommunications, electronics fabrication, government, military, information services, retail sales, internet product sales, educational institutions, software production, and insurance. Beyond my industry and technical experience I bring over ten (10) years of non-data processing business and management experience to each of my assignments. 

I have been an author published in prestigious technical journals, a columnist for an online ezine, a contributor and technical reviewer to several technical books, and a sought after lecturer on several subjects, most notably IBM's Informix database systems. 

I am also a recognized expert in the areas of Algorithm Design, Decision Support Systems, User Interface Design, Software Architecture, Probability and Statistics, Market Analysis, Media Planning and Analysis, and Time Accounting. In 1982 I built the world's first implementation of a Model Base Management System and in 1985 invented UnShuffle a unique sort algorithm which can be shown to be the most efficient available for real-world data sets.