Thomas LaRock

How to Recover the Master Database in SQL Server 2012

01/14/14 In my seven years as a production DBA, I can count on one hand the number of times I have need to restore the master database as a result of a disaster. In other words, th…

Connect to Windows Azure Virtual Machine Using SSMS

12/18/13 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…

Changing Default Database File Locations in SQL Server

12/06/13 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 defined in the se…

5 Things You Didn’t Know About SQL Agent

11/27/13 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 expe…

What Happens if I Shrink a Database in Windows Azure?

11/20/13 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 matter of “when” this will hap…

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

10/03/13 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 artic…

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

10/03/13 In this second part of a three-part article series, we’ll look at how to examine the plan cache to quickly identify plans that need tuning, including: Plans that have miss…

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

10/03/13 The plan cache holds a great deal of information about the overall health of your database instance. You can use the plan cache to investigate current performance issues a…

SQL Server Consolidation, Part 3

12/20/12 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 …

SQL Server Consolidation, Part 2

12/20/12 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 homeowner pa…

SQL Server Consolidation, Part 1

12/20/12 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 …

Performance Counters for Database Mirroring

12/19/12 We have customers using database mirroring, so I wanted to take some time to write a quick post regarding database mirroring and performance monitoring. Microsoft has publ…