Portrait of Ramakrishnan Ayyappan

About

Ramakrishnan Ayyappan

Staff Database Architect

San Francisco Bay Area, California

I architect and design databases, data models, and the platforms around them—schemas that hold up under load, migrations, CDC, observability, and the AI ops layer that keeps systems explainable. Staff Database Architect at QIAGEN in the Bay Area; previously Cisco, PayPal, and Eli Lilly.

Expertise

What I work on

Databases

PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, AWS Aurora, DynamoDB

Migrations & CDC

Schema comparison, Oracle/MySQL → PostgreSQL, Debezium, Kafka, logical replication

AI systems

Schema-aware agents, MCP tools, n8n loops, custom SaaS, and natural-language access to databases

Observability

Grafana, Prometheus, Zabbix, CloudWatch

Skills

Skillset

AI systems

  • Agentic AI Engineer
  • Schema-aware agents
  • MCP
  • n8n
  • LangChain
  • LangGraph
  • RAG
  • LLMs
  • Microsoft Copilot Studio

Databases

  • PostgreSQL
  • Oracle
  • MySQL
  • AWS Aurora
  • DynamoDB
  • MongoDB
  • SQL
  • PL/SQL

Pipelines

  • Python
  • Apache Airflow
  • Kafka
  • Debezium
  • GoldenGate
  • ETL/ELT
  • Spark
  • AWS Glue

Observability

  • Grafana
  • Prometheus
  • Zabbix
  • CloudWatch
  • DataOps

Cloud & delivery

  • AWS
  • Terraform
  • CloudFormation
  • IAM
  • CI/CD
  • Docker
  • Linux

Path

Experience

QIAGEN

Staff Database Architect / Administrator / Engineer

Redwood City, California

Principal architect for on-premises and AWS OLTP/OLAP platforms. Re-platforming Oracle to PostgreSQL, DataOps with CI/CD and automated patching, and real-time pipelines on Python, Debezium, Kafka, GoldenGate, and Airflow. Led AI-driven tools—schema-aware agents and Copilot-style assistants—so operators can reach databases in natural language without weakening security or audit requirements.

PayPal

Sr. Oracle DBA

San Jose, California

Supported high-availability Oracle for payment operations. Led upgrades and re-platforming with GoldenGate, and served as Release Lead DBA for release cycles, deployments, and capacity planning.

Cisco Systems

Sr. Oracle DBA · DB Performance Analyst

San Jose, California

Owned reliability and performance for Oracle estates, including 24/7 support, SQL analysis, root-cause work, and developer training on query standards.

Eli Lilly

Lead Oracle DBA

Greater Indianapolis, Indiana

Operated a large Oracle estate with monitoring and disaster recovery. Led Oracle-to-DB2 migrations, deployed Oracle Grid Control, and kept SOX and CPU advisory requirements in the operating model.

Credentials

Certifications and training

  • Agentic AI Engineer

    Edureka

    Issued Jun 2026

    Credential ID jXiTu2hMLWW

  • Databricks Lakehouse Fundamentals

    Pragmatic AI Labs

    Issued May 2026

  • Python for Data Science, AI & Development

    IBM

    Issued Jan 2024

  • ETL and Data Pipelines with Shell, Airflow and Kafka

    IBM

    Issued Jan 2024

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate

    Amazon Web Services

    Issued Jul 2020

  • Amazon Aurora Service Introduction

    Edureka

    Issued Apr 2026

  • Oracle Database 12c Administrator Certified Professional

    Oracle

    Issued Jan 2016

  • Oracle Database 11g Administrator Certified Professional

    Oracle

    Issued Sep 2009

  • MongoDB for DBA

    MongoDB

    Issued Sep 2015

  • Terraform for the Absolute Beginner

    KodeKloud

    Issued Nov 2025

  • Hadoop Administration

    Edureka

    Issued Oct 2014

Answers

Common questions

Who is Ramakrishnan Ayyappan?
Ramakrishnan Ayyappan is a Staff Database Architect at QIAGEN in the San Francisco Bay Area. He architects and designs databases, data models, and platforms for migrations, CDC, observability, and AI-powered operations. He previously held Oracle DBA roles at Cisco Systems, PayPal, and Eli Lilly.
What database architecture services does he offer?
Architecture and design for databases and data models, Oracle-to-PostgreSQL and cross-database migration planning, CDC pipeline design (Kafka, Debezium, GoldenGate), DataOps and observability (Grafana, Prometheus, Zabbix, CloudWatch), and AI ops including schema-aware agents and MCP diagnostic tools.
What databases and platforms does he specialize in?
PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, AWS Aurora, DynamoDB, and MongoDB, plus real-time data pipelines with Apache Kafka, Debezium, GoldenGate, and Apache Airflow.
Where is Ramakrishnan Ayyappan based?
San Francisco Bay Area, California. He works at QIAGEN in Redwood City and is available for database architecture consulting remotely across the US.
How can I contact him about a data or database project?
Use the contact form at https://rayyappan.com/contact or email contact@rayyappan.com with a short brief on migrations, CDC design, observability, or AI ops.
What is an example of his open-source database tooling?
Projects on rayyappan.com include DBSync (schema comparison and CDC), AI Postgres diagnostics, MySQL Diag MCP (read-only MySQL diagnostics for agents), Kafka CDC planning, and related DataOps tooling. Source links appear on each project page.