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

Connect to Windows Azure Virtual Machine Using SSMS

December 18, 2013

Database

In 2013, Microsoft made it available for customers to utilize virtual machines running in Windows Azure. This allowed customers to run an on-premises version of SQL Server, but have the…

Changing Default Database File Locations in SQL Server

December 6, 2013

Database

When you create a database in SQL Server and do not specify a file location for your data and log files, SQL Server will rely on the default locations as…

5 Things You Didn’t Know About SQL Agent

November 27, 2013

Database

Microsoft SQL Server comes with a boatload of additional components. One component is the SQL Agent. The purpose of the SQL Agent is to serve as a job scheduler. Many…

What Happens if I Shrink a Database in Windows Azure?

November 20, 2013

Database

At some point in your career as a data professional, you are going to fill up an entire drive with data. It is not a question of “if,” but a…

Improve SQL Server Performance by Looking at Plan Cache (Part 3)

October 3, 2013

Database

You can use the information in the SQL Server plan cache to research performance issues and investigate opportunities for performance improvement. In this three-part article series, we’ve examined several important…

Improve SQL Server Performance by Looking at Plan Cache (Part 2)

October 3, 2013

Database

The SQL Server plan cache can be a good tool to use in identifying current performance issues and in looking for new ways to improve performance.

Improve SQL Server Performance by Looking at Plan Cache (Part 1)

October 3, 2013

Database

The SQL Server plan cache stores details on statements that are executed over time. Each time a statement executes, SQL Server will look inside the plan cache first to see if a plan already exists. If a plan exists, SQL Server will use that plan instead of spending time compiling a new plan. This ensures the engine operates efficiently.

SQL Server Consolidation, Part 3

December 20, 2012

Database

I wrote a couple of posts previously on SQL Server consolidation. The first post tried to give insight on some of the problems and associated motivating factors that most companies have…

SQL Server Consolidation, Part 2

December 20, 2012

Database

Consider for a moment that you have a deck attached to your house. It is one story above ground level and is growing weaker with each passing year. The former…

SQL Server Consolidation, Part 1

December 20, 2012

Database

I am seeing more than a handful of articles these days regarding SQL Server virtualization and/or consolidation. Lots of companies are coming forward to provide you tools that will take…

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