Thomas LaRock

Thomas LaRock
Thomas LaRock is a Head Geek at SolarWinds and a Microsoft Certified Master, Microsoft Data Platform MVP, VMware vExpert, and a former Microsoft Certified Trainer with over 20 years’ experience.

SQL Server MVP linkedin 

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 in roles including 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. While at Confio, his research and experience helped to create the initial versions of the software now known as SolarWinds Database Performance Analyzer. LaRock joined the SolarWinds family through the acquisition of Confio in 2013.

LaRock is also the Immediate Past President of 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 his time working with customers to help resolve problems and answer questions regarding database performance tuning and virtualization for SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, SAP, and DB2, making it his mission to give IT and data professionals longer weekends.

2017 Awards   MSSQLTips award

Category Tip Title
Auditing and Compliance SQL Server 2008 Audit Change Group
Auditing and Compliance SQL Server 2008 Auditing Feature
Backup How to find out how long a SQL Server backup took
Backup Striping SQL Server Database Backups
Compression SQL Server 2008 Backup Compression
Data Types Decimal Conversions in SQL Server Change Datatype Format
Database Mirroring SQL Server Database Mirroring Performance Monitoring
Encryption Exporting and Importing SQL Server Always Encrypted Certificates for Client Access
Linked Servers Script to check all your linked server connections for SQL Server
Policy Based Management Import SQL Server 2008 Database Engine Policies with Policy Based Management
Policy Based Management Monitor Your SQL Server Linked Server Configurations with Policy Based Management
Policy Based Management Monitor Your SQL Server Virtual Log Files with Policy Based Management
Policy Based Management New Facets and Properties in SQL Server 2012
Policy Based Management SQL Server Policy Base Management Has Clustered Index Condition
Policy Based Management Validate SQL Server Backups Exist with Policy Based Management
Professional Development Books DBA Survivor
Restore Identify when a SQL Server database was restored, the source and backup date
Restore Restore Individual Tables Using SQL Server BACPAC
Restore When was the last time your SQL Server database was restored
Scripts Script to check that backup files still exist for SQL Server
Security Secure and disable the SQL Server SA Account
Security SQL Server Dynamic Data Masking Discovery and Implementation
SQL Server Agent Configuring SQL Agent Jobs to Write to Windows Event Log
SQL Server Agent How to Find Long Running Job Steps in Microsoft SQL Server
SQL Server Agent How to Find Long Running Jobs in Microsoft SQL Server
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