On Thursday, May 20, 2010, I had the opportunity to speak at the North Texas SQL Server Users Group, which is held on the third Thursday of every month at the Microsoft offices in Irving, TX (near Dallas).

The user group is headed up by Sri Sridharan, with help from Tim Mitchell and Sean McCown.

Unlike most SQL Server User Group meetings, with only a single presenter, Sean McCown (Sean and his wife Jennifer are known as the MidnightDBAs, and offer free online SQL Server training videos), started out the meeting with part four of his multi-part series called “Ground Zero—SSIS”. This educational series is designed to help bring DBAs up to speed on SSIS. I really find this type of on-going training at a user group meeting to be very innovative, and I think it would be a great idea for other SQL Server user groups to emulate. Such an educational series allows attendees to gain a more in-depth knowledge of a topic, unlike the single presentations that are generally offered.

Once Sean gave his presentation, I followed up with my presentation on “How to Analyze Performance Monitor Data Using PAL.”

This was a busy week for the North Texas SQL Server Users Group, as on the following Saturday they hosted SQL Saturday #35, which ended up with 410 attendees, a great turnout for their first SQL Saturday event. While I was unable to attend this event (I was attending IndyTechFest instead), I hope to be able to attend next year.