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Authors  >  Thomas LaRock

Thomas LaRock Thomas LaRock
Thomas LaRock is a seasoned IT professional with over a decade of technical and management experience. Currently serving as a Senior Database Administrator manager for Confio Software, Thomas has progressed through several roles including programmer, analyst, and DBA. Prior to that, he worked at several software and consulting companies, working at customer sites in the United States and abroad. Thomas holds a MS degree in Mathematics from Washington State University and is a member of the Usability Professional’s Association. Thomas is also a member of Quest Software’s Association of SQL Server Experts, currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), and is a SQL Server MVP. Thomas can also be found blogging at http://thomaslarock.com and is the author of DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA (http://dbasurvivor.com).
Tom LaRock's SQL Server Howlers
by Thomas LaRock | 05 January 2012 |  17 comments |
In this next article in our series where well-known SQL Server people write about their favorite SQL Server Howlers, we asked Tom Larock for his top five common misunderstandings about how SQL Server works that end in tears, and plaintive forum questions. Read more...
Statistical Sampling for Verifying Database Backups
by Thomas LaRock | 13 May 2010 |  8 comments |
A DBA's huge workload can start to threaten best practices for data backup and recovery, but ingenuity, and an eye for a good tactic, can usually find a way. For Tom, the revelation about a solution came from eating crabs. Statistical sampling can be brought to... Read more...
Monitoring SQL Server Virtual Log File Fragmentation
by Thomas LaRock | 06 January 2010 |  11 comments |
One of the delights of PASS is to be able to pick up ideas from some of the presentations and recombine them in new and interesting ways. Tom recounts how he used two different insights to solve a problem of monitoring a large number of servers for signs of Virtual... Read more...
SQL Server Consolidation
by Thomas LaRock | 04 September 2009 |  5 comments |
In the crusade to cut expenses, Data Centres (and IT Infrastructure) are now coming under scrutiny as a possible source of savings. Half-informed executives now rally behind the cry of "Virtualization!", but virtualization is only part of the story - The tip of the... Read more...
SQL Server Audit: Magic without a Wizard
by Thomas LaRock | 27 April 2009 |  8 comments |
In SQL Server 2008, Microsoft introduced SQL Server Audit. This is much better than anything we had before, and is likely to meet the needs of all but the largest, or the most highly-regulated of industries. SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition includes all of the... Read more...
Using Operations Manager Reports to Validate Your Uptime
by Thomas LaRock | 09 March 2009 |  3 comments |
Operations Manager has a number of reports to help you monitor the uptime of your applications, but reporting can be difficult to learn until you understand all the different options, the different parameters possible, and the way the Operations Manager health model... Read more...
Monitor your Database Backups Using Operations Manager
by Thomas LaRock | 02 December 2008 |  8 comments |
Thomas LaRock shows just how easy it is for a DBAs to monitor any aspect of the databases in their charge by using Operations Manager, just as long as they are prepared to spit on their hands and do some coding. As he says, 'The possibilities are endless'. Read more...
Operations Manager: A Big Tinker Set
by Thomas LaRock | 28 October 2008 |  7 comments |
To illustrate the great possibilities of Systems Center Operations Manager 2007, Thomas shows how to create a Custom Monitor for SQL Agent Jobs, and concludes that Operations Manager is nothing more than a big tinker set with all the pieces available to make your... Read more...
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