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Thomas LaRock

Head Geek, SolarWinds

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 of 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. 

Thomas can be contacted at https://thomaslarock.com/contact-me. 

https://twitter.com/SQLRockstar LinkedIn profile SolarWinds

Thomas’s Recent activity

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Upgrading to SQL Server 2016, Part Three
Aug 02, 2017
If you’ve been following this series, you know that in part one, I addressed reasons for upgrading to Microsoft SQL Server 2016, as well as some pre-upgrade tasks to be mindful of, and in part two, I focused on...
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Upgrading to SQL Server 2016, Part Two
Jun 22, 2017
In the first post of this series on upgrading to Microsoft SQL Server 2016, I addressed reasons for upgrading, as well as some pre-upgrade tasks to be mindful of. In this installment, I’m going to...
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Upgrading to SQL Server 2016, Part One
Jun 07, 2017
Have you ever been asked for your thoughts on upgrading a database server? If you’re like most data professionals, your response probably included something along the lines of, “it’s difficult&rdquo...
Don39t let fear of the unknown keep you from moving forward
The Future of Managing Databases in a Hybrid IT World
Feb 14, 2017
When you work in information technology long enough, you get to see how people react when something new comes along. Some people embrace change, even to the point of being an early adopter. Others might use a wait-and...
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Virtualizing SQL Server: 8 Things to Avoid
Nov 20, 2013
I've been involved in virtualization projects for about 10 years now. In that time, I've had the opportunity to track my own list of best practice items. It's a list I share freely with customers that seek out virt...