/ Thomas LaRock

Thomas LaRock

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Thomas LaRock

Thomas LaRock is a Head Geek™ at SolarWinds and a Microsoft® Certified Master, Microsoft Data Platform MVP, VMware® vExpert, and former Microsoft Certified Trainer. He has over 20 years’ experience in the IT industry as a programmer, developer, analyst, and database administrator. LaRock has spent much of his career focused on data and database administration, which led to his being chosen as a Technical Evangelist for Confio Software in 2010, where his research and experience helped to create the initial versions of the software now known as SolarWinds® Database Performance Analyzer. LaRock has served on the board of directors for the Professional Association for SQL Server® (PASS), and is an avid blogger, author, and technical reviewer for numerous books about SQL Server management. He now focuses on working with customers to help resolve problems and answer questions regarding database performance tuning and virtualization for SQL Server, Oracle®, MySQL®, SAP®, and DB2®. He’s made it his mission to give IT and data professionals longer weekends.

The Latest Posts Featuring Thomas LaRock

Six Ways to Protect your Database Backups
June 15, 2018
Database
I often see forum posts from accidental administrators who want to know how to recover data without a backup. The short answer is, “Now is a good time to work…
Be Responsive and Responsible
June 13, 2018
Database
Over the years, I’ve read more than a few articles about the qualities that are found in the best administrators. These articles focus on soft skills, but sometimes will list…
The Future Isn’t in Databases, But in the Data
June 11, 2018
Database
In the past year I have earned a couple of certificates from the Microsoft Professional Program. One certificate was in Data Science, the other in Big Data. I’m currently working…
Collecting and Alerting on Deadlocks for SQL Server
December 7, 2016
Database
SolarWinds DPA can collect a count of the number of deadlocks to be displayed as a resource graph. For Ignite versions prior to 8.2, you can update two files in…
Why DPA Uses SQL Server Trace Flag 2861 and Zero Cost Plans
December 7, 2016
Database
About zero cost plans in SQL Server OK, first thing first, what is a “zero cost plan” in SQL Server?  I did some digging around and found the following links,…
Using VSAN to Maximize Database Performance
September 28, 2015
Database
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to speak at VMWorld in San Francisco. The session title was Using Virtual SAN to Maximize Database Performance, and in that session I…
Learning to Pivot
September 18, 2015
Network
The role of information technology inside of corporations is not new; it has existed for decades. With each passing year we see acceleration in the speed and complexity of changes…
VMDK versus RDM: Which One Do I Need for SQL Server?
March 26, 2014
Database
When it comes to disk configuration options for virtualized servers running on VMware, you have two options: VMFS virtual file-based disk (VMDK) or a raw device mapping (RDM). Which one…
Hardware or Code? SQL Server Performance Examined
January 24, 2014
Database
CPUs are running faster now than ever before, solid-state drives are replacing spinning disks, and database servers have terabytes of RAM. Because these resources are plentiful and increasingly affordable, it…
How to Recover the Master Database in SQL Server 2012
January 14, 2014
Database
In my seven years as a production DBA, I can count on one hand the number of times I have need to restore the master database as a result of…
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