I recently discovered the Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS) virtual chapters. For those of you who struggle to make chapter and user group meetings (like me) this can be an excellent way of getting some excellent SQL Server training. I only came across the virtual chapters recently. There are several virtual chapters including one on Database Administration, Virtualisation, Performance etc there are about seven in total but these three are ones that interest me at the moment.
The virtualisation chapters next online meeting will be held on 9th Feb @ 1700 GMT (1200 Eastern) the presenter is Brent Ozar (twitter | Blog) and I intend to make every effort to make this meeting. You can get further details here: http://virtualization.sqlpass.org/ I saw Brent present a session at the SQL BIT community day at the end of last year and his session was excellent so I think this will be my first live event.
The other good thing about the virtual chapters, well for the DBA chapter anyhow, is the fact they record the sessions and put them online to download and view later, so if you miss one or you can’t make it, you don’t lose out, obviously you can’t make a contribution or ask any questions but you can benefit from the content. You can get to the DBA chapter here http://dba.sqlpass.org/
I have downloaded and viewed one of these sessions so far, the session was called:
End-to-End Troubleshooting for SQL Server 2005/2008
Presenter: Kevin Kline (Blog)
The session covered a Methodology for Troubleshooting SQL Server using the native SQL Server tools like Performance Monitor (Perf Mon), Profiler and DMVs etc. The highlight of the session for me was Kevin’s ‘brain dump’ of the perf mon counters and what the results mean.
