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 hype around blockchain technology is reaching a fever pitch these days. Visit any tech conference and you’ll find more than a handful of vendors offering it in one form or another. This includes Microsoft, IBM, and AWS. Each of those companies offers a …
In part one of this series, we discussed the different types of databases available on the market today. In part two, we discussed how to choose the right database for your requirements. Today, we are going to look at some additional factors you should …
In my last post, we talked about the different types of databases available on the market for you to choose from. With over 300 options, it is hard to know which one is the right database. Today, we are going to help you with …
The internet is littered with information, and misinformation, regarding data and databases. A short time ago, a colleague asked me where to find a “Databases 101” guide for the non-technical professional. He wanted something to help make sense of data and databases, specifically relational …
I’ve been working with SQL Server since what seems like forever ++1. The truth is I haven’t been a production DBA in more than 6 years (I work in marketing now, in case you didn’t know). That means I will soon hit a point in …
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 on your resume.” The longer answer is, “Recreate all your data.” But the truth …
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 hard skills as well. In all those years, and in all those articles, I …
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 on a third certificate, this one in Artificial Intelligence. You might be wondering …
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 spent time focusing on performance as well as recovery. Why would recovery be a …
