DATACON Seattle Sessions and Workshops
Microsoft Data Conference
DATACON is held in conjunction with TechCon 365 & PWRCON - mix and match your workshops and sessions!
- Azure Data Services
- Azure SQL/ SQL Server
- Data Integration and Transformation
- Data Security and Governance
- Data Warehousing
- Microsoft Fabric
- Power BI and Data Visualization
- SQL in Fabric
- SQL Server Optimization and Best Practices
- SQL Server Data Solutions for Enterprise
- Special Topics
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Azure Cosmos DB for Developers: From Basics to AI
This workshop is perfect for any developer eager to explore how to integrate Azure Cosmos DB into their applications! We’ll dive into the ins and outs of Azure Cosmos DB, helping you gain a thorough understanding of its architecture, features, and handy tools. We’ll also cover essential concepts like partitioning and data modeling for distributed NoSQL databases, making sure you feel confident in working with this powerful technology.
The workshop will include an in-depth look at all the database services offered by Azure Cosmos DB, with a primary focus on the SQL API. We will utilize the Azure Cosmos DB Emulator as much as possible, so participants may not need an Azure subscription for most of the workshop. Additionally, attendees will learn how to use the Azure Cosmos DB Data Migration Tool to migrate data from various sources into Azure Cosmos DB.
Azure Cosmos DB provides a range of AI capabilities via Azure AI Foundry. In the workshop's concluding section, participants will explore AI features and vector data options available in Azure Cosmos DB.
Participants are welcome to join the workshop with or without their computer, as there will be valuable learning opportunities regardless of whether a computer is used.Room 320-321Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Database Administration for the Non Database Administrator
In this all day session on Microsoft SQL Server we will be learning about how Microsoft SQL Server works, both in Azure and on-premises, and what needs to be done to keep it up and running smoothly when you don't have a full-time database administrator on staff to help you keep it running.
In this session, we will cover a variety of topics, including backups, upgrade paths, indexing, database maintenance, database corruption, patching, virtualization, disk configurations, high availability, database security, database mail, anti-viruses, scheduled jobs, and much, much more.
From a product perspective, we'll examine SQL Server in an Azure VM, Azure SQL DB, and Azure SQL DB Managed Instance, as well as the on-prem options, including SQL Server on-premises options, including Azure Arc hosted deployments.
After taking this full-day session on SQL Server you'll be prepared to take the information that we go over and get back to the office, get the SQL Server's patched and properly configured so that they run without giving you problems for years to come.Room 343-344Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Query Store and Azure SQL Copilot, who is the fairest in the land?
Query store + Azure SQL Copilot, which is the baddest query in my instance.
On-premises or Azure, it doesn't matter, Query Store will help you finding out how your queries are performing.
Get your performance to the next level knowing how to digg into Query Store data. Understand how it works, and how you can use Query Store data to solve performance issues and detect problems before they create a situation.
Do you want to know how to mine Query Store: plans, queries?
Learn how to get the best of it in an instance with several databases.
We will also discuss the available options for troubleshooting using Azure SQL Copilot
Based on Microsoft support experience.Room 340-342Tue 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm -
Azure 101
Microsoft Azure is a daunting thing to look at and think about. In this session, we'll look at the basics of Azure, what the options are for setting up an Azure account; as well as look at how regions are broken down. We'll take a look at the differences between Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service as well as the High Availability and Disaster Recovery options that are available to do with these services. We'll finish the session off by looking at some options for Virtual Machines within Azure as well as the SQL Server offerings that are available on the platform.
Room 320-321Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Getting started with SQL database in Fabric
Microsoft Fabric, the unified data platform, now includes an operational database solution and it is SQL! Come learn all the fundamentals of how this solution is the same and different from other SQL deployment options. We will also show you the value of using SQL in the Fabric ecosystem including developer experiences, automation, monitoring, and integration for AI applications.
Room 325Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Deployments aren’t enough – databases deserve a development process
How quickly can you take your database and examine its code? Database-as-code is not a new concept, but all too often we focus only on being able to apply changes to the database instead of having a development process that ensures that we’re making good database changes. A more wholistic development process offers early warnings of antipatterns via code analysis and increases our confidence even on mature databases with deployment “practice runs” and unit tests. In this session we’ll discuss the components of a database development cycle through the lens of Microsoft.Build.Sql projects and what capabilities we should expect to deliver database object updates easily and more reliably.
Room 347-348Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Transform your business with integrated solutions using SQL database in Microsoft Fabric
The promise of SQL Database in Fabric is that it is simple, autonomous, and optimized for AI - but what does that mean for you and your organization? In this session we will explore how various personas can benefit from a deeply integrated operational database in Fabric. Discover how customers are using SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric today, and how Fabric databases can help you build innovative solutions in the age of AI, faster and easier than ever.
Room 325Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Transform Your Business with Real-Time Intelligence: Microsoft Fabric Meets Dynamics 365
Abstract:
Imagine your Dynamics 365 data not just as a record-keeping system, but as a live, actionable resource driving real-time decisions across your organization. In this session, we’ll dive deep into how Microsoft Fabric enhances Dynamics 365 with real-time intelligence, enabling you to unlock new opportunities for operational efficiency and innovation.
We’ll start by demonstrating how to implement event sourcing to capture and process changes in Dynamics 365 in a real time fashion way, integrating into Microsoft Fabric’s powerful analytics and data integration capabilities. Using real client success stories, you’ll see how these patterns enable instant updates, real-time reporting, and proactive decision-making.
You’ll also experience live demos showcasing the full lifecycle of real-time data integration—from capturing events in Dynamics 365 and transforming them in Fabric pipelines, to visualizing actionable insights in Power BI and bringing them back into Dataverse to empower your teams.
In this session you will learn how event sourcing and modern integration patterns bring data to life, through real client success stories and live demos.
What You’ll Learn:
• How to set up real-time data pipelines between Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Fabric.
• Practical event-sourcing patterns for building seamless, scalable integrations.
• Techniques to surface actionable insights back into Dynamics 365 and Dataverse to empower decision-making.
• Best practices for operationalizing real-time intelligence with minimal disruption to your existing architecture.
Why Attend:
You’ll leave this session with a step-by-step understanding of how to create real-time intelligence solutions, backed by practical examples and real-world use cases. Whether you're a data professional, architect, or Dynamics 365 expert, this session will give you actionable tools and insights to take back to your organization.
Post-Session Outcomes:
• Start building your first real-time integration using Microsoft Fabric and Dynamics 365.
• Access resources, templates, and best practices shared during the session to accelerate your implementation.
• Connect with like-minded professionals to collaborate and share ideas.
Call to Action:
Don’t just learn—act! After the session, you’ll be encouraged to apply what you’ve seen, with resources and next steps to kickstart your real-time intelligence journey. Let’s turn your data into a strategic advantage!Room 322Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
10 Free SQL Databases: Your Playground for AI, Advanced Analytics, and Next-Gen Applications!
The Azure SQL free database offer is bigger than ever—now providing 10 free databases per subscription for life! This means unlimited opportunities to build, analyze, and innovate without worrying about costs.
In this session, you'll explore how to:
1. Unlock AI-driven insights by running ML models, anomaly detection, and intelligent recommendations directly in SQL
2.Power real-time analytics by processing and visualizing data streams for predictive forecasting and decision-making
3.Automate workflows and optimize data pipelines with SQL-based automation and event-driven processing
4.Enhance BI reporting and dashboarding with seamless integrations into Power BI and other analytics tools
5.Develop enterprise-grade applications, including AI-powered customer insights, fraud detection, financial forecasting, IoT telemetry, and marketing personalization
6.Set up multi-database environments for development, experimentation, and CI/CD pipelines—all without affecting production
Whether you're a developer, data scientist, or analytics enthusiast, this session will show you how to harness the full power of SQL for AI and analytics—with zero cost and limitless possibilities.
Join us and take your data-driven applications to the next level!Room 325Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Hold my beer; I know how to fix this with Copilot!
Many proof-of-concept AI applications fail to reach production because industries do not find value in copilot-like applications.
Companies seek clarity and focus, not an overwhelming barrage of chat applications bombarding decision-makers with countless suggestions or summarizations.
This session will help you connect the dots in the AI puzzle using Microsoft technologies, including the new open-source database, DocumentDB. We will examine vector stores, the RAG pattern, and multi-agent frameworks and learn how to implement these technologies in applications.
By the end of this session, you will have all the practical information necessary to integrate AI features into your projects.Room 347-348Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Choosing the Right Data Store--An Overview of Azure Data Platform Choices
There are several different data platform solutions for use within your application. Selecting the right option can make the difference between a well-performing application and a poorly performing one; not to mention the cost aspect of choosing the wrong solution.
In this session we'll look at the options of Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Database Managed Instance, and Cosmos DB to see when these are all going to be the correct option, and when these aren't going to be the right option; both from a price and performance perspective.Room 320-321Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Azure SQL Database Hyperscale elastic pools - a deep-dive
Azure SQL Database offers a very popular deployment option called elastic pools, to help ease the challenges around right-sizing and cost-optimizing resources for a group of databases. In this session, we will dive deep into the latest generation of elastic pools which leverage the Hyperscale cloud-native architecture. Starting with a quick overview of the motivation for using elastic pools, and a quick recap of the Hyperscale tech, we will use demos to show you:
- How Hyperscale elastic pools ("HSEP") implement resource sharing...
- ... while maintaining strong isolation between databases
- What are the performance and capacity limits of each HSEP
- How you can proactively control "noisy neighbor" databases in a HSEP
- How HSEP scales vertically and / or horizontally, and what the impact of such scaling is on your workloads
- How to monitor HSEP effectively using DMVs, Azure Monitor and Database Watcher
- How backups, high availability, and disaster recovery work for databases in a HSEP
- Last but not the least, how HSEP helps in cost optimization - and what you should watch out for as well to manage TCO.
To make best use of this session, some Azure SQL knowledge would help, but it's not necessary. Anyone who plans to run databases in Azure SQL should be aware of elastic pools so that they can benefit from the optimizations they provide. This session will directly help you in understanding how HSEP work and how they may be beneficial to your scenario.Room 325Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Unleash the Power of SQL Database in Fabric: Innovate Without Limits Using the Free Trial
Curious about SQL Database in Fabric but unsure where to start? This session is your gateway to limitless innovation—completely free. Discover how to leverage the Fabric free trial to explore serverless computing, real-time analytics, and AI-powered insights—all without cost or commitment.
We’ll walk you through hands-on scenarios, best practices, and real-world workflows that showcase the full potential of SQL Database in Fabric. Learn how to automate processes, optimize performance, and seamlessly integrate SQL with other Fabric components to drive efficiency and scale effortlessly.
Whether you're a developer, data engineer, or tech innovator, this session will give you the tools to experiment, build, and unlock new capabilities—risk-free. Don't miss this opportunity to transform your data solutions and bring your ideas to life with zero barriers, zero cost, and endless possibilities.Room 347-348Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Unified DevOps for Microsoft Fabric, Azure SQL, and SQL Server with next-gen SQL projects
With Microsoft.Build.Sql SDK-style SQL projects, your database objects are stored as code for seamless development in Microsoft Fabric and client tools like VS Code and Visual Studio, but the advantages don’t stop there. The modernized SQL projects format backs Fabric’s git integration and deployment pipelines for Data Warehouse and SQL database, providing interoperability with extended CI/CD capabilities and your existing DevOps investments for SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, and Synapse Data Warehouse. SQL project’s code analysis and other build-time tests validate database code quality and correctness during continuous integration of code changes. With SQL projects delivering database object updates is easier and more reliable whether you're managing one database or a fleet of databases because the deployment plan is dynamically calculated through the SqlPackage CLI. In this session we’ll learn how to leverage the Fabric experiences for database DevOps in addition to the depth of capabilities from SQL projects such that we can efficiently develop and deploy database changes with source control integration, all with the tools you love.
Room 347-348Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Azure SQL DB Hyperscale: The Definitive Modern Database Choice
Join us at DataCon to explore the Azure SQL Database Hyperscale. We'll discuss its architecture and use cases, highlighting benefits like larger database sizes, faster throughput, and continuous priming. Learn how these advancements boost scalability, speed, and reliability in data management. Stay ahead with the cutting-edge features of Azure SQL Database Hyperscale.
We'll dive into real-world use cases and innovations that demonstrate the power of Azure SQL in driving the next generation of databases. Discover how organizations are leveraging Hyperscale for mission-critical applications, and how vector support enhances performance for complex queries and AI workloads. Experience firsthand the transformative impact of Azure SQL Database in various industries and understand why it is the preferred choice for modern data solutions.Room 320-321Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Mastering Elastic Database Pools: Best Practices and Troubleshooting from Microsoft Support
Join us for an in-depth exploration of Elastic Database Pools, the game-changing technology that empowers developers and DBAs to efficiently manage and scale their databases. In this session, we'll delve into best practices and strategies for leveraging Elastic Database Pools to optimize your workload management and improve performance.
Drawing from real-world support cases at Microsoft, we'll demonstrate the significant impact and benefits of using Elastic Database Pools in various scenarios. Our talk will also cover essential troubleshooting techniques to identify and resolve incidents effectively.
Plus, don't miss our live demos showcasing practical examples and code in multiple programming languages. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a DBA looking to enhance your toolkit, this session is tailored for you! Gain valuable insights, practical tips.Room 325Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Securing Azure PaaS Network Communications
Many companies use one or more Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings when working with Microsoft Azure. However, these companies don't want to allow the network traffic to these PaaS services to go over the public Internet. In this session, we will learn more about why companies want to secure this network traffic and, more importantly, how to secure this traffic and what application changes need to be made to use these private connections.
Room 340-342Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Performance tuning for Azure Cosmos DB
Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed database service, freeing developers from database management tasks. However, as a developer, you still have important responsibilities, such as changing indexing policies, configuring connections, estimating workloads, and selecting the right throughput options. All of these tasks have a direct impact on the performance and cost of your application.
To keep your application running smoothly and fast, we'll explore the .NET/SDK settings, connection types, and indexing types. We'll also focus on selecting the right throughput options, using Query Execution Metrics and server-side programming.
Join me as we explore how to optimize your Azure Cosmos DB solutions for the best performance.Room 343-344Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
AI and SQL ground to cloud to fabric
New to AI? Come learn the fundamentals of how to get started with AI and Microsoft SQL everywhere it exists: ground to cloud to fabric. This includes SQL Server 2025, Azure SQL, and SQL database in Fabric. SQL is the perfect place to integrate data with AI because of its industry proven security, scalability, and availability. We will show GenAI capabilities like vector search, how to integrate these with your application, and Copilot experiences everywhere SQL exists including GitHub Copilot.
Room 347-348Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Build AI Apps Smarter: Optimize SQL Database Costs & Performance in Fabric
Take your AI apps to the next level with cost-smart SQL database optimization in Fabric. This session explores how to maximize performance while minimizing costs by leveraging Fabric's capacity monitoring tools for SQL databases. Learn to track resource usage, identify inefficiencies, and optimize database performance—all without exceeding your budget. Designed for app developers, architects, and innovators, this talk will provide real-world strategies to build scalable, high-performing AI apps powered by intelligent SQL database cost management. Discover how to turn insights into action and supercharge your AI applications with Fabric
Room 347-348Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm
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Advanced Data Protection Strategies with SQL Server: A Hands-on Workshop
This workshop equips developers and database professionals with the practical skills needed to implement robust data protection in their SQL Server environments. It creates systems where sensitive information remains secure even from privileged users like database administrators.
Through structured, hands-on exercises, participants will:
Discover and Classify sensitive data using SQL Server's built-in tools—establishing the foundation for a comprehensive security strategy
Implement Column-Level Protection through Dynamic Data Masking and Always Encrypted, including advanced scenarios with secure enclaves that maintain query performance while protecting data confidentiality
Deploy Row-Level Security to enforce granular access controls based on user context, ensuring proper data isolation and visibility
Establish Audit Trails to monitor and track all interactions with classified data, supporting compliance requirements and enabling security incident investigations
Throughout the day, participants will progressively build a secured database and a .NET web application, integrating each security feature into a cohesive solution. By the session's end, attendees will have developed a proof-of-concept that demonstrates enterprise-grade data protection techniques that satisfy security requirements while maintaining application functionality.Room 340-342Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
PowerShell DBA Dream dbatools Workshop
Unlock the power of automation and enhance your database management skills in this full-day PowerShell workshop designed for DBAs. This session will equip you with essential skills and streamline your daily operations and reduce manual errors through scripting and automation.
We will start with PowerShell fundamentals before moving into advanced scripting best practices tailored to the needs of SQL Server management. A key highlight of the workshop is our in-depth exploration of the **dbatools module**—a powerful, community-built toolkit that simplifies SQL Server management tasks. With over 700 cmdlets/functions it is a treasure trove of greatness (in my opinion). This mostly demo session with many real-world examples, you’ll learn how to leverage dbatools to automate tasks such as backups, restores, performance monitoring, and migrations, dramatically enhancing your operational efficiency.
Whether you’re looking to learn PowerShell and dbatools or to explore automation strategies, this workshop offers a rich blend of theoretical insights and interactive scenarios. Join me for a day of learning, collaboration, and fun that will allow you to take full control of your database operations with the combined power of PowerShell and dbatools.Room 347-348Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
The Ultimate Guide to Ola Hallengren's Maintenance Solution
When it comes to Database Maintenance, you just cannot ignore it. Did you know that traditional Maintenance Plans have been deprecated? Did you know that they often perform duplicate actions? It is time to take your maintenance to a different level and mentality.
You must have heard about Ola Hallengren by now. There are many environments that have default values running the show. This session is meant to take you through the maintenance solution from top to bottom and present some insights into how to get the most out of this solution.
When you leave this session, you will have a new understanding of what is possible beyond the defaults. Not only that I will show you the easy way to install this solution and preset the values in the jobs with very little effort. Join me for a power packed session that will give you all you need to know about this solution. See you there.Room 343-344Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Indexing Internals for Developers & DBAs
What are the secrets to making your queries run faster? Why does SQL Server use an index for some queries and not for others? What makes a good index? How many indexes should I have? Have you ever asked these questions? When you want to understand an application you look at its core architecture. Underneath the covers SQL Server is just a C++ application. Together we will discuss how the application architecture of SQL Server works, and how to apply this logic to building the best indexes for your queries.
Room 343-344Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
TSQL Best Practices Through Behavior Analysis
Ever wonder why your query behaves a certain way? Looking at the behavior of your query can lead you down a path to tuning. As with all queries, different servers will behave differently. With all those permutations (CPU, Memory, disk type, etc.) you can easily give up. But with these best practices you learn here, you have a shot at getting more consistent behavior by following them. I will show you what to look for and how to affect the behavior through better TSQL. Join me in a quest to write and tune queries by looking at how they behave.
Room 320-321Thu 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Hold my beer; I know how to fix this with Copilot!
Many proof-of-concept AI applications fail to reach production because industries do not find value in copilot-like applications.
Companies seek clarity and focus, not an overwhelming barrage of chat applications bombarding decision-makers with countless suggestions or summarizations.
This session will help you connect the dots in the AI puzzle using Microsoft technologies, including the new open-source database, DocumentDB. We will examine vector stores, the RAG pattern, and multi-agent frameworks and learn how to implement these technologies in applications.
By the end of this session, you will have all the practical information necessary to integrate AI features into your projects.Room 347-348Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
A Query Runs Through It: An Introduction to the SQL Server Engine
Have you ever wondered what happens inside SQL Server when you execute that query you wrote? This session will serve as an introduction to what is going on under the hood, commonly called SQL Server Internals. Whether writing queries or tuning them, SQL Server internals knowledge is highly valuable in Azure VMs or SQL DB, AWS, GCP, and on-premises as the SQL Server engine is the same. Together we will dip into why data types matter, ponder pages, sample the storage engine, and ponder the query processor as we see what happens when your query runs.
Room 343-344Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
SSMS 21 Spotlight: What's new and why it matters
With the Preview 1 release of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 21 in November, the SQL Tools team made available the biggest set of updates to SSMS in recent memory, including numerous requests that customers have been waiting to see...for years in some cases.
In this session we'll show off what's new in SSMS 21, what's in progress, and what we have planned for SQL 2025. We'll start by walking through installation and jump to the first step for each launch - connecting. You'll want to connect to a database using our new connection dialog - we'll take a tour through the experience and take feedback (we're always listening :) We'll also cover updates you'll find throughout SSMS such as changes to Azure authentication, and improvements in the query editor and results grid. Folks have been excited about support for Git in SSMS, so we'll show you how to get started. If Git is new to you, it may seem daunting. Don't worry, if we can figure it out, so can you!
Expect lots of demos, as many tips, tricks, and updates as we can fit in.Room 323-324Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
AI and SQL ground to cloud to fabric
New to AI? Come learn the fundamentals of how to get started with AI and Microsoft SQL everywhere it exists: ground to cloud to fabric. This includes SQL Server 2025, Azure SQL, and SQL database in Fabric. SQL is the perfect place to integrate data with AI because of its industry proven security, scalability, and availability. We will show GenAI capabilities like vector search, how to integrate these with your application, and Copilot experiences everywhere SQL exists including GitHub Copilot.
Room 347-348Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Real Time Monitoring with Real-life Use Cases using Database Watcher
In this session, we are going to show you how easy it is to use Database Watcher, a cloud-native and cross-platform solution that supports multiple database types, versions, and platforms, to set up proactive database monitoring and collect deep and rich data. You will see how Database Watcher provides easy to understand visualizations, with near real time monitoring, which can help you optimize your database performance, availability, and health.
During this session we will cover the following with you:
- Brief overview of Database Watcher architecture
- Delve into real scenarios with Database Watcher dashboards
- Create custom dashboards for custom scenarios
- Using the power of KQL to query the raw monitoring data
Join us in this session and discover how Database Watcher can help you take your DBA career to the next level by enabling you to proactively monitor, troubleshoot, and improve your database operations.Room 325Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm -
Wait Wait Do Tell Me: A Look At SQL Server Wait Stats
Hurry up and wait, it happens to all of us, even SQL Server. Why is SQL Server waiting? What can we do about it? These questions will be addressed as we define what a wait really is in SQL Server and some approaches to make SQL wait less. This session, targeted at data professionals, managers, developers, and sys admins, will also explore a few of the common SQL waits and specifically what we can do about them
Room 343-344Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm -
Introduction to SQL Server Essential Concepts
When I first started learning about SQL Server, really deeply learning, there were a few “key” concepts that you hear repeated often by top speakers and SQL MVP’s. Internals, recovery models, and backups. They are interconnected. As the learning continued, it was self-evident how understanding basic data internals with pages, extents, and allocation bitmaps or database recovery models, the transaction log, and VLF’s or advanced backup options backups like stripping and piecemeal restores affected the uses of SQL Server. They affected not just SQL Server but the way you make decisions in order to determine how best to use SQL Server to support your business. This session enables you to have that core set of understanding required for advanced SQL learning.
Room 347-348Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm
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Deep Dive: Building a framework for orchestration in Azure Data Factory
Finding the balance between cost, efficiency and performance for cloud-based ETL processes can be a tricky proposition, and a good ETL framework will help you get there.
In this all-day session we will take a deep dive into what the components of such a framework may look like in Azure Data Factory, and why orchestration can be a good option if you're trying to minimize cost. We will also do an in-depth review of an actual framework I've developed and use today, which you can use as a starting point for your own efforts.
If you are currently using Azure Data Factory and feel like you're recreating the wheel all the time, or if you're planning to move from SSIS to ADF in the future and would like some ideas on how to create an ETL framework, this will be the perfect training day for you.Room 322Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Introduction to Microsoft Fabric for the Data Professional
Join us for a full day of exploration into Microsoft Fabric, the revolutionary Software as a Service (SaaS) product that’s changing the game in Business Intelligence and Modern Analytics. For the last 3 years, Microsoft has been building this groundbreaking technology, which offers the ability to ingest and link to existing data without duplication. With Azure Synapse Data Engineering, Data Factory, Data Science, Data Warehousing, Realtime Analytics, and Power BI all at your fingertips, the possibilities are endless. In this pre-conference event, we’ll guide you through a full build scenario, showing you how to link existing data, and utilize OneLake. Join us and discover the power of Microsoft Fabric!
Room 325Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
ETL, KQL, and RTI: Harnessing Data in Motion with Microsoft Fabric
Real-time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric brings us into the next generation of data movement and event-driven architecture. As the arms race of cloud data platforms continues, make sure you know the weapons at your disposal so you and your company are fully equipped for the future - because the future is not far away. While you may be familiar with RTI’s streaming data capabilities, did you know it can be an integral part of your ETL architecture? While you may have heard of KQL, did you know it can do data visualization? While you may have heard of RTI, did you know it can help you monitor your entire data estate?
Join RTI product group members and Microsoft Data Platform MVPs for a full day of learning. Takeaways include:
- Loading a full medallion architecture using RTI components
- Use case by use case breakdown of the components of RTI and how customers are using them today across their data estate
- Data visualization and trend analysis with KQL
- Monitoring your entire data estate using Real-time Intelligence in Microsoft FabricRoom 322Tue 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Maximize efficiency in your data-driven projects by leveraging AI and Copilot technologies.
In the Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Fabric study, the composite organization based on data from four companies using Fabric showed an increase in data engineer and data scientist productivity of up to 50%, plus a 15% increase in business analyst productivity.
In this workshop, we will explore the transformative potential of various copilots, AI services within Microsoft Fabric. It covers live demos and hands on experience on Microsoft Fabric Copilots, AI Skills, Fabric integration with AI and GenAI services.
Participants will thoroughly explore the Copilot maturity framework and learn strategies to overcome adoption challenges, enabling customers to maximize the benefits of Copilots.Room 347-348Tue 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm -
Microsoft Fabric: Lessons from Year 1
As of November 2023, Microsoft made the announcement that Microsoft Fabric was Generally Available. In the time since, many organizations jumped into the exciting world of this emerging technology.
Any fabric, technical or not, needs to be well maintained to retain its initial quality and usefulness. In the same way, your approach to implementing Microsoft Fabric could either set yourself up for a successful, long-term implementation, or one that needs a rebuild in 1-2 years.
In this session, I'll walk through features of Fabric that have lived up to the hyped labels and work as prescribed. I'll also provide demos challenges I've faced with the product and how I've worked through them. Finally, I'll recommend routine activities that should be performed on any Fabric environment to keep it nice and clean.
(If this wasn't enough Fabric references and you need more, check out this session for even more puns!)Room 323-324Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Microsoft Fabric: Ultimate Data Security for Robust Data Warehousing
This session delves into the advanced security features of Microsoft Fabric, specifically designed for data warehousing. Attendees will learn how to classify and protect sensitive data using sensitivity labels and policies in Microsoft Purview.
The session will cover the implementation of Row-Level Security (RLS) to restrict access at the row level, ensuring users only see data relevant to their roles. Additionally, it will explore Column-Level Security (CLS) to secure specific columns in datasets, providing an extra layer of protection for sensitive information.
Participants will also discover how to use data masking techniques to obfuscate sensitive data, making it unreadable to unauthorized users while maintaining usability for authorized personnel. The session will emphasize aligning data warehousing practices with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA, leveraging Microsoft Fabric’s compliance tools and features.
Join us to gain a comprehensive understanding of how to secure your data warehouse end-to-end within Microsoft Fabric.Room 340-342Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Fabric Data Factory: What's New and Roadmap
In this session, you will learn the exciting product innovations and roadmap for Fabric Data Factory. You will learn how Fabric Data Factory provides industry-leading data movement, transformation and orchestration capabilities. You will learn how AI-powered development experiences will enable you to be more productive and effectively build data integration solutions.
Room 320-321Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Getting started with SQL database in Fabric
Microsoft Fabric, the unified data platform, now includes an operational database solution and it is SQL! Come learn all the fundamentals of how this solution is the same and different from other SQL deployment options. We will also show you the value of using SQL in the Fabric ecosystem including developer experiences, automation, monitoring, and integration for AI applications.
Room 325Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Building a framework for orchestration in Azure Data Factory
Finding the balance between cost, efficiency and performance for cloud-based ETL processes can be a tricky proposition, and a good ETL framework will help you get there.
In this session we will look at what the components of such a framework may look like in Azure Data Factory, and why orchestration can be a good option if you're trying to minimize cost. We will also walk through an actual framework I've developed and use today, which you can use as a starting point for your own efforts.
If you are currently using Azure Data Factory and feel like you're recreating the wheel all the time, or if you're planning to move from SSIS to ADF in the future and would like some ideas on how to create an ETL framework, this will be the perfect session for you.Room 320-321Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
PowerBI, DirectQuery and SQL Server. It is a good choice?
You will learn best practices, tips and tricks on how to successfully use SQL databases (OnPremise,IaaS, PaaS,SQL Managed Instance) with PowerBI on production environments.
How improve the performance, using for example, Read-Scale, HyperScale or Synapse, partitioning, ColumnStoreIndexes, Indexed views, etc..
How to monitor and diagnostic your database and find out issues with Query Data Store. These learnings are fruit of Microsoft CSS support cases, and customer field engagements.Room 323-324Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Harness the Power of Microsoft Fabric and Notebooks
Microsoft Fabric gives us a notebook experience unlike any other previous Microsoft product. The power of notebooks is immense. Sure you can use data from your Lakehouse, Data Warehouse, or OneLake but what about PYODBC? Can we connect to a relational database without a Data Pipeline or a Data Flow? Could we just download a file from Kaggle or Github and start using Data Wrangler? Could we use Beautiful Soup to scrape data, load it into a Pandas data frame, and begin working with it? Can we invoke OpenAI models using GPT to glean new insights into our data? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. Yes we can, and in this session you will learn how to harness the power of Microsoft Fabric Notebooks.
Room 323-324Thu 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Choosing the Right Data Store--An Overview of Azure Data Platform Choices
There are several different data platform solutions for use within your application. Selecting the right option can make the difference between a well-performing application and a poorly performing one; not to mention the cost aspect of choosing the wrong solution.
In this session we'll look at the options of Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Database Managed Instance, and Cosmos DB to see when these are all going to be the correct option, and when these aren't going to be the right option; both from a price and performance perspective.Room 320-321Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Data Processing Architecture: Key Design Principles & Considerations
In the era of big data, the design of data processing architecture is crucial for efficient data management and analysis. This presentation explores the fundamental principles and considerations essential for constructing robust data processing systems. Key design principles such as scalability, reliability, security, and flexibility are examined in detail.
The architecture's ability to handle varying data flows, ensure data integrity, and maintain security across multiple stages is emphasized. Additionally, the presentation discusses various architectural patterns, including data warehouses, data lakes, and data flow pipelines, highlighting their respective use cases and benefits.
Furthermore, the presentation contrasts traditional data processing architecture with the emerging concept of data mesh. While traditional architectures focus on centralized data processing and transformation, data mesh advocates for a decentralized approach, promoting domain-oriented data ownership and self-serve data infrastructure.
This comparison underscores the shift from monolithic data management to a more flexible and scalable architecture, addressing the diverse needs of modern data-driven organizations.
By adhering to these principles and considerations, data engineers can create systems that not only meet current data processing needs but are also adaptable to future technological advancements and data requirements.Room 322Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Working with OAuth 2.0 APIs in Azure Data Factory
Working with APIs can be tricky, and even more so when it's an OAuth 2.0 API. Add to that an ETL platform and automation, and you now have a perfect storm that's pretty difficult to navigate.
This session is about my journey with OAuth 2.0 APIs while trying to extract my own financial data, how I struggled with the authorization flow and how it finally started making sense.
We'll talk about what an OAuth 2.0 API is, and why they are so difficult to deal with when your tool of choice is an automated ETL platform. After that we'll take a closer look at the steps to develop an ADF pipeline that extracts data from an OAuth 2.0 API, and review some tools that can help you throughout the development process.Room 340-342Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Harnessing the Power of Data Mesh: A Deep Dive into the Four Pillars of Modern Data Architecture
Abstract:
In today's data-driven world, traditional data management approaches often struggle to keep pace with the growing complexity and scale of enterprise data. Enter Data Mesh, a revolutionary paradigm that redefines how organizations handle data. This session will explore the four foundational pillars of Data Mesh architecture: Domain-Oriented Decentralization, Data as a Product, Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, and Federated Computational Governance.
We'll delve into how Domain-Oriented Decentralization empowers teams to own and manage their data, fostering agility and innovation. Discover the concept of Data as a Product, where data is treated with the same rigor and care as any other product, ensuring quality and usability. Learn about Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, which democratizes data access and tooling, enabling teams to work independently and efficiently. Finally, understand the importance of Federated Computational Governance in maintaining security, compliance, and consistency across decentralized data environments.
Join us to gain insights into implementing Data Mesh in your organization, transforming your data strategy, and unlocking the full potential of your data assets.Room 323-324Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Roadmap for developers in Fabric: Writing a CRUD App using SQL database, API for GraphQL and User Da
Discover how to harness the full potential of Fabric to build powerful modern data-driven applications. In this session participants will learn how to use the API for GraphQL and User Data Functions over SQL databases and other data sources in the Microsoft Fabric Platform to build modern “CRUD” (Create, Read Update and Delete) data APIs that you can immediately call from an application. APIs for GraphQL enable you to effortlessly connect your Fabric data with your applications, with only a few clicks. If you have more complex business logic for your data, you can implement it with Python User Data Functions. With these two powerful building blocks and a SaaS-ified, developer-friendly experience, your app will be up and running in no time!
Room 323-324Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm
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Generate self-service governance dashboard using Microsoft Fabric and Purview
1. Data Ingestion & Integration
Utilize Microsoft Fabric’s OneLake to unify governance data from Purview, M365, and third-party data sources.
Implement Synapse Data Engineering to transform governance metadata into structured insights.
2. Governance Metrics & Compliance Monitoring
Define key governance KPIs, including:
* Data Quality Scores (accuracy, completeness, consistency).
* Compliance Status (GDPR, HIPAA, industry-specific regulations).
* Data Lineage & Sensitivity Labels (metadata classification).
* User Access & Data Usage Trends.
3. Self-Service Dashboard with Purview
Integrate Purview with Fabric for real-time metadata visualization.
Design interactive dashboards in Power BI with drill-down capabilities for governance teams.
Enable role-based access control for different user personas (CIO, Data Stewards, Compliance Officers).Room 340-342Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Securing SQL Server
Your organization's data will always be a primary target for adversaries. If you are using SQL Server to store this data, there are a wealth of settings and tools available to improve your security posture. In this talk, we will look at different methods of securing a SQL Server instance, from venerable (principle of least privilege, Transparent Data Encryption) to modern (Always Encrypted with secure enclaves, Microsoft Defender), and many things in between. These tools and techniques will show us ways for developers, database administrators, systems administrators, and network specialists to work together to secure SQL Server instances.
Room 340-342Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Data Governance with Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Fabric
Managing data across large organizations can feel like an endless game of catch-up. Microsoft Purview and Fabric make it easier by giving teams tools to organize, protect, and share data without constant compliance headaches.
First, we’ll look at the challenges organizations face when data is scattered across silos with possible security gaps slowing everything down and creating possible regulatory concerns.
Next, we’ll see how Purview and Fabric work together to streamline data management by cataloging assets, enforcing protections, and making data easier to find.
Finally, we’ll show how this approach simplifies compliance, improves data accessibility, and supports better collaboration across teams.
Attendees will come away with a practical guide on using Microsoft Purview and Fabric to keep data organized, compliant, and useful.Room 323-324Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
Best practices and Guidance when using Microsoft Dataverse
We'll cover best practices when developing solutions using Microsoft Dataverse. We'll cover guidance for API usage, form design, app performance, security, maintenance and more!
Room 340-342Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Rethinking Databases: Blockchain for Security, Trust, and Transparency
In an era where data breaches, fraud, and lack of transparency plague traditional databases, blockchain emerges as a revolutionary solution for secure and trusted data management. This session explores how blockchain technology is transforming the way we store, access, and verify data—eliminating single points of failure, enhancing security, and ensuring transparency like never before.
I'll dive into the core principles of blockchain that make it a superior alternative to traditional databases, from immutability and cryptographic security to decentralized trust mechanisms. Attendees will gain insights into real-world applications across industries such as finance, healthcare, and supply chain, showcasing how blockchain is redefining data integrity and ownership.
Whether you’re a developer, business leader, or tech enthusiast, this session will equip you with the knowledge to understand why blockchain is the future of secure and transparent databases—and how your organization can leverage it for a more trusted digital ecosystem.Room 320-321Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
SQL Server 2025: The Enterprise AI ready database
Come learn about the latest information for SQL Server 2025, now in preview. You will learn how to bring AI to your data with AI applications using built-in vector capabilities ground to cloud. In addition, you will learn about new enhancements for developers including JSON, RegEx, REST API, GraphQL, Change Streaming. You will also learn about all the new engine features for security, performance, and availability. You will also see how to integrate your SQL Server 2025 experience using the new SSMS21 and SSMS Copilot.
Room 343-344Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
Building a Data Culture
Data is a core part of our lives that influences all parts of business, from how we implement technology, to our establishment of business processes, all the way to individuals themselves. We solve tech and business process problems every day, but do we solve people problems?
How are people problems solved? With company culture. And culture can make or break data projects as easily as tech and process problems.
In this session, we'll talk about a company culture's influence on their ability to be data driven. We will identify common pitfalls that can influence how well your organization will be able to use data. We will also identify ways you can identify, and even measure, the data culture in your organization.Room 322Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Mastering Elastic Database Pools: Best Practices and Troubleshooting from Microsoft Support
Join us for an in-depth exploration of Elastic Database Pools, the game-changing technology that empowers developers and DBAs to efficiently manage and scale their databases. In this session, we'll delve into best practices and strategies for leveraging Elastic Database Pools to optimize your workload management and improve performance.
Drawing from real-world support cases at Microsoft, we'll demonstrate the significant impact and benefits of using Elastic Database Pools in various scenarios. Our talk will also cover essential troubleshooting techniques to identify and resolve incidents effectively.
Plus, don't miss our live demos showcasing practical examples and code in multiple programming languages. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a DBA looking to enhance your toolkit, this session is tailored for you! Gain valuable insights, practical tips.Room 325Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Building Your First CRUD App using Dataverse for Teams with Copilot
We'll learn how to leverage Copilot and AI to quickly turn an Excel table into a Dataverse schema, with data and a fully functional low-code app using the assistance of AI and Copilot Studio.
Microsoft Dataverse for Teams delivers a no code / low code out of the box data platform for Microsoft Teams. You get relational data storage, rich data types, enterprise-grade governance, and one-click solution deployment. Dataverse for Teams enables everyone to easily build and deploy apps. Come see what Dataverse for Teams is all about and how to get started building databased apps within Teams.Room 347-348Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Make your solution sparkle with the medallion architecture
As a data engineer you spend a lot of time transforming data into data models that in turn will be used to provide insights to your organization. As the lines between the technical and business roles become more and more blurred it is even more important to establish a solid data architecture.
In this session we will demystify the medallion architecture and its different layers. We will showcase how you can use it in your solutions like Azure Databricks or Microsoft Fabric as well as digging into the benefits of using a non-technical approach when collaboration between different data roles increases even more.
If you are a data engineer, a data analyst, a business analyst or a business representative consuming analytical data, this session is for you. You will by the end of this session identify how your data flows through the layers of the medallion architecture and what data to use for different use cases.Room 320-321Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Harnessing the Power of Data Mesh: A Deep Dive into the Four Pillars of Modern Data Architecture
Abstract:
In today's data-driven world, traditional data management approaches often struggle to keep pace with the growing complexity and scale of enterprise data. Enter Data Mesh, a revolutionary paradigm that redefines how organizations handle data. This session will explore the four foundational pillars of Data Mesh architecture: Domain-Oriented Decentralization, Data as a Product, Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, and Federated Computational Governance.
We'll delve into how Domain-Oriented Decentralization empowers teams to own and manage their data, fostering agility and innovation. Discover the concept of Data as a Product, where data is treated with the same rigor and care as any other product, ensuring quality and usability. Learn about Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, which democratizes data access and tooling, enabling teams to work independently and efficiently. Finally, understand the importance of Federated Computational Governance in maintaining security, compliance, and consistency across decentralized data environments.
Join us to gain insights into implementing Data Mesh in your organization, transforming your data strategy, and unlocking the full potential of your data assets.Room 323-324Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Securing Azure PaaS Network Communications
Many companies use one or more Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings when working with Microsoft Azure. However, these companies don't want to allow the network traffic to these PaaS services to go over the public Internet. In this session, we will learn more about why companies want to secure this network traffic and, more importantly, how to secure this traffic and what application changes need to be made to use these private connections.
Room 340-342Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Realtime product review data analysis for Retail using Fabric RTI, Purview and Azure Open AI
This session focuses on leveraging Microsoft Fabric's Real-Time Intelligence and Generative AI capabilities to monitor and analyze streaming customer review data in retail. Participants will learn how to:
1. Ingest and process streaming data from customer reviews in real-time.
2. Utilize AI agents to detect anomalies in sentiment trends and unusual patterns.
3. Generate insights using Microsoft Fabric’s Real-Time Intelligence, Co-Pilot Studio, and ML notebooks.Room 340-342Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm
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Introduction to Microsoft Fabric for the Data Professional
Join us for a full day of exploration into Microsoft Fabric, the revolutionary Software as a Service (SaaS) product that’s changing the game in Business Intelligence and Modern Analytics. For the last 3 years, Microsoft has been building this groundbreaking technology, which offers the ability to ingest and link to existing data without duplication. With Azure Synapse Data Engineering, Data Factory, Data Science, Data Warehousing, Realtime Analytics, and Power BI all at your fingertips, the possibilities are endless. In this pre-conference event, we’ll guide you through a full build scenario, showing you how to link existing data, and utilize OneLake. Join us and discover the power of Microsoft Fabric!
Room 325Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Maximize efficiency in your data-driven projects by leveraging AI and Copilot technologies.
In the Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Fabric study, the composite organization based on data from four companies using Fabric showed an increase in data engineer and data scientist productivity of up to 50%, plus a 15% increase in business analyst productivity.
In this workshop, we will explore the transformative potential of various copilots, AI services within Microsoft Fabric. It covers live demos and hands on experience on Microsoft Fabric Copilots, AI Skills, Fabric integration with AI and GenAI services.
Participants will thoroughly explore the Copilot maturity framework and learn strategies to overcome adoption challenges, enabling customers to maximize the benefits of Copilots.Room 347-348Tue 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm -
Microsoft Fabric: Ultimate Data Security for Robust Data Warehousing
This session delves into the advanced security features of Microsoft Fabric, specifically designed for data warehousing. Attendees will learn how to classify and protect sensitive data using sensitivity labels and policies in Microsoft Purview.
The session will cover the implementation of Row-Level Security (RLS) to restrict access at the row level, ensuring users only see data relevant to their roles. Additionally, it will explore Column-Level Security (CLS) to secure specific columns in datasets, providing an extra layer of protection for sensitive information.
Participants will also discover how to use data masking techniques to obfuscate sensitive data, making it unreadable to unauthorized users while maintaining usability for authorized personnel. The session will emphasize aligning data warehousing practices with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA, leveraging Microsoft Fabric’s compliance tools and features.
Join us to gain a comprehensive understanding of how to secure your data warehouse end-to-end within Microsoft Fabric.Room 340-342Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Fabric houses, when to go for Lakehouse or Warehouse (or both)?
Should you keep your data in the Fabric Lakehouse or the Warehouse? What are the pros and cons? In Fabric, all and any data is kept in the OneLake, and it is processed by one of the Fabric’s data engines. Choosing between Lakehouse and Warehouse (or both) is at the same time a strategic and performance impacting decision. • In this demo oriented session you will learn:
o Their distinctions and particular use cases
o When they overlap
o How to use them together
o When not to use one of them (or either)Room 322Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
Data Processing Architecture: Key Design Principles & Considerations
In the era of big data, the design of data processing architecture is crucial for efficient data management and analysis. This presentation explores the fundamental principles and considerations essential for constructing robust data processing systems. Key design principles such as scalability, reliability, security, and flexibility are examined in detail.
The architecture's ability to handle varying data flows, ensure data integrity, and maintain security across multiple stages is emphasized. Additionally, the presentation discusses various architectural patterns, including data warehouses, data lakes, and data flow pipelines, highlighting their respective use cases and benefits.
Furthermore, the presentation contrasts traditional data processing architecture with the emerging concept of data mesh. While traditional architectures focus on centralized data processing and transformation, data mesh advocates for a decentralized approach, promoting domain-oriented data ownership and self-serve data infrastructure.
This comparison underscores the shift from monolithic data management to a more flexible and scalable architecture, addressing the diverse needs of modern data-driven organizations.
By adhering to these principles and considerations, data engineers can create systems that not only meet current data processing needs but are also adaptable to future technological advancements and data requirements.Room 322Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Harnessing the Power of Data Mesh: A Deep Dive into the Four Pillars of Modern Data Architecture
Abstract:
In today's data-driven world, traditional data management approaches often struggle to keep pace with the growing complexity and scale of enterprise data. Enter Data Mesh, a revolutionary paradigm that redefines how organizations handle data. This session will explore the four foundational pillars of Data Mesh architecture: Domain-Oriented Decentralization, Data as a Product, Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, and Federated Computational Governance.
We'll delve into how Domain-Oriented Decentralization empowers teams to own and manage their data, fostering agility and innovation. Discover the concept of Data as a Product, where data is treated with the same rigor and care as any other product, ensuring quality and usability. Learn about Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, which democratizes data access and tooling, enabling teams to work independently and efficiently. Finally, understand the importance of Federated Computational Governance in maintaining security, compliance, and consistency across decentralized data environments.
Join us to gain insights into implementing Data Mesh in your organization, transforming your data strategy, and unlocking the full potential of your data assets.Room 323-324Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Unleashing Modern Data Warehousing: Architecture, Insights & Future Innovations in Fabric Warehouse
Join us for a deep dive into the modern data warehouse! We’ll break down the core principles, use cases, and architectural intricacies. Discover how innovations like Data Virtualization, enhanced Data Modeling experiences, AI-powered insights with Copilot, and more are helping developers and customers unlock the full potential of Fabric Warehouse. This session is packed with live demos, best practices, and an exciting glimpse into the future roadmap of Data Warehousing.
Room 325Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm
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A Comprehensive Guide to Direct Lake for the Pro Data Modeller
Join us for a workshop designed specifically for Pro Data Modellers. This comprehensive session will guide you through all the critical elements needed to build, tune, and maintain a Direct Lake Model in Microsoft Fabric.
Throughout the workshop, you will delve into essential topics such as:
-Understanding the prerequisites for setting up your model.
-Exploring the anatomy of Parquet files and their role in data storage.
-Mastering transcoding and framing techniques to optimize data processing.
-Implementing SQL fallback strategies for enhanced reliability.
-Discovering new features and how they can benefit your projects.
-Ensuring robust security measures to protect your data.
-Fine-tuning performance to achieve optimal efficiency.
-Navigating the migration process with ease.
-Tackling advanced topics to elevate your modelling skills.
By the end of this workshop, you will have gained the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively manage a Direct Lake Model, ensuring your projects are both efficient and secure.Room 323-324Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Introduction to Microsoft Fabric for the Data Professional
Join us for a full day of exploration into Microsoft Fabric, the revolutionary Software as a Service (SaaS) product that’s changing the game in Business Intelligence and Modern Analytics. For the last 3 years, Microsoft has been building this groundbreaking technology, which offers the ability to ingest and link to existing data without duplication. With Azure Synapse Data Engineering, Data Factory, Data Science, Data Warehousing, Realtime Analytics, and Power BI all at your fingertips, the possibilities are endless. In this pre-conference event, we’ll guide you through a full build scenario, showing you how to link existing data, and utilize OneLake. Join us and discover the power of Microsoft Fabric!
Room 325Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
ETL, KQL, and RTI: Harnessing Data in Motion with Microsoft Fabric
Real-time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric brings us into the next generation of data movement and event-driven architecture. As the arms race of cloud data platforms continues, make sure you know the weapons at your disposal so you and your company are fully equipped for the future - because the future is not far away. While you may be familiar with RTI’s streaming data capabilities, did you know it can be an integral part of your ETL architecture? While you may have heard of KQL, did you know it can do data visualization? While you may have heard of RTI, did you know it can help you monitor your entire data estate?
Join RTI product group members and Microsoft Data Platform MVPs for a full day of learning. Takeaways include:
- Loading a full medallion architecture using RTI components
- Use case by use case breakdown of the components of RTI and how customers are using them today across their data estate
- Data visualization and trend analysis with KQL
- Monitoring your entire data estate using Real-time Intelligence in Microsoft FabricRoom 322Tue 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Data Science Jump Start using Microsoft Fabric
Data scientists can manage data, notebooks, experiments, and models while easily accessing data from across the organization and collaborating with their fellow data professionals using Microsoft Fabric.
In this module, you'll learn how to understand the data science process in Fabric, train models with notebooks in Fabric and
track model training metrics with MLflow and experiments.Room 325Tue 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Design a Well-Architected Fabric Solution: A Medallion First Approach
Transform your data solutions with a streamlined Medallion Architecture using Microsoft Fabric. This session is tailored for professionals familiar with Power BI and basic dataflows, providing a step-by-step guide to implementing Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers for a scalable and maintainable pipeline. Learn how to evolve an unstructured dataflow and semantic model into a comprehensive architecture. Familiarity with Python or SQL is a bonus but not required.
Modules:
• Overview of Medallion Architecture: Gain a clear understanding of Warehouses and Lakehouses, their role within Microsoft Fabric, and how they enable Medallion Architecture.
• Understanding OneLake: Dive into OneLake and explore its foundational storage structure, including Delta tables and Parquet. Understand key features like columnar storage, Delta optimizations, and performance enhancements through simple, no-code explanations.
• Feature Showdown: Compare and contrast key tools in Microsoft Fabric, such as SQL vs. Spark, Notebooks vs. Dataflows vs. Pipelines, and Warehouses vs. Lakehouses, to determine the best fit for your scenarios.
• Well-Designed Architecture & Best Practices:
Learn about GIT integration, monitoring techniques, and actionable best practices for designing scalable and maintainable data architectures.
Labs:
• Build a Lakehouse and create a Medallion Architecture pipeline.
• Extract raw data using Pipelines (Bronze).
• Clean and transform data with Spark Notebooks (Silver).
• Add business logic with T-SQL (Gold).
• Create orchestration and monitor pipelines for optimal performance.
• Bonus Lab: Create and manage a semantic model and integrate it with GIT for version control.Room 323-324Tue 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Maximize efficiency in your data-driven projects by leveraging AI and Copilot technologies.
In the Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Fabric study, the composite organization based on data from four companies using Fabric showed an increase in data engineer and data scientist productivity of up to 50%, plus a 15% increase in business analyst productivity.
In this workshop, we will explore the transformative potential of various copilots, AI services within Microsoft Fabric. It covers live demos and hands on experience on Microsoft Fabric Copilots, AI Skills, Fabric integration with AI and GenAI services.
Participants will thoroughly explore the Copilot maturity framework and learn strategies to overcome adoption challenges, enabling customers to maximize the benefits of Copilots.Room 347-348Tue 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm -
Copilot in Fabric - AI Data Science Help Tips and Tricks
Copilot and other generative AI features bring new ways to transform and analyze data, generate insights, and create visualizations and reports in Microsoft Fabric and Power BI. Come see how to take advantage of Copilot in Fabric, what it can do and how to make sure it's enabled.
Room 322Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Microsoft Fabric: Lessons from Year 1
As of November 2023, Microsoft made the announcement that Microsoft Fabric was Generally Available. In the time since, many organizations jumped into the exciting world of this emerging technology.
Any fabric, technical or not, needs to be well maintained to retain its initial quality and usefulness. In the same way, your approach to implementing Microsoft Fabric could either set yourself up for a successful, long-term implementation, or one that needs a rebuild in 1-2 years.
In this session, I'll walk through features of Fabric that have lived up to the hyped labels and work as prescribed. I'll also provide demos challenges I've faced with the product and how I've worked through them. Finally, I'll recommend routine activities that should be performed on any Fabric environment to keep it nice and clean.
(If this wasn't enough Fabric references and you need more, check out this session for even more puns!)Room 323-324Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Microsoft Fabric: Ultimate Data Security for Robust Data Warehousing
This session delves into the advanced security features of Microsoft Fabric, specifically designed for data warehousing. Attendees will learn how to classify and protect sensitive data using sensitivity labels and policies in Microsoft Purview.
The session will cover the implementation of Row-Level Security (RLS) to restrict access at the row level, ensuring users only see data relevant to their roles. Additionally, it will explore Column-Level Security (CLS) to secure specific columns in datasets, providing an extra layer of protection for sensitive information.
Participants will also discover how to use data masking techniques to obfuscate sensitive data, making it unreadable to unauthorized users while maintaining usability for authorized personnel. The session will emphasize aligning data warehousing practices with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA, leveraging Microsoft Fabric’s compliance tools and features.
Join us to gain a comprehensive understanding of how to secure your data warehouse end-to-end within Microsoft Fabric.Room 340-342Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Real-Time Intelligence: Turning Streaming Data into Smart Decisions
In today’s fast-paced world, making smart, data-driven decisions in real time is essential for maintaining efficiency and quality in business operations. Join us to explore Microsoft Fabric Real-Time Intelligence and discover how to seamlessly ingest, analyze, and act on real-time data.
Learn how to:
1. Ingest real-time data from multiple sources into Fabric
2. Run lightning-fast queries for instant insights
3. Monitor key metrics with intuitive, real-time dashboards
4. Set up automated alerts and detect anomalies for proactive issue resolution
5. Leverage Copilot in Real-Time Intelligence to query data using natural languageRoom 345-346Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Fabric Data Factory: What's New and Roadmap
In this session, you will learn the exciting product innovations and roadmap for Fabric Data Factory. You will learn how Fabric Data Factory provides industry-leading data movement, transformation and orchestration capabilities. You will learn how AI-powered development experiences will enable you to be more productive and effectively build data integration solutions.
Room 320-321Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Accelerate Intelligent App Development with SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric
Discover the new SQL database in Microsoft Fabric, where seamless setup and an integrated development environment enable you to quickly leverage the power of an AI-driven data platform. Provision and deploy an autonomous database with built-in security in seconds, featuring automatic setup.
In this session, we'll delve into the potential of SQL database in Fabric, which combines the enterprise-scale features and capabilities of the Azure SQL Database engine with the autonomous management and ease-of-use advantages of the Microsoft Fabric data estate.
We'll uncover core functionalities, best practices, and real-world strategies to integrate your database with other Fabric workloads, creating a tailored, high-impact data stack that empowers your solutions to thrive within the Fabric ecosystem.Room 322Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Deep dive into Direct Lake
Join Patrick Leblanc and Phil Seamark for a deeper dive to discover what makes Direct Lake so fast. This session will cover important elements of monitoring and optimizing your Fabric data platform to unlock the full potential of Direct Lake, such as how to interpret Delta Analyzer logs and what to look out for if things slow down.
Room 323-324Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Generate self-service governance dashboard using Microsoft Fabric and Purview
1. Data Ingestion & Integration
Utilize Microsoft Fabric’s OneLake to unify governance data from Purview, M365, and third-party data sources.
Implement Synapse Data Engineering to transform governance metadata into structured insights.
2. Governance Metrics & Compliance Monitoring
Define key governance KPIs, including:
* Data Quality Scores (accuracy, completeness, consistency).
* Compliance Status (GDPR, HIPAA, industry-specific regulations).
* Data Lineage & Sensitivity Labels (metadata classification).
* User Access & Data Usage Trends.
3. Self-Service Dashboard with Purview
Integrate Purview with Fabric for real-time metadata visualization.
Design interactive dashboards in Power BI with drill-down capabilities for governance teams.
Enable role-based access control for different user personas (CIO, Data Stewards, Compliance Officers).Room 340-342Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Getting started with SQL database in Fabric
Microsoft Fabric, the unified data platform, now includes an operational database solution and it is SQL! Come learn all the fundamentals of how this solution is the same and different from other SQL deployment options. We will also show you the value of using SQL in the Fabric ecosystem including developer experiences, automation, monitoring, and integration for AI applications.
Room 325Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Build an end-to-end data solution with Microsoft Fabric
In this session, we will explore how to leverage Microsoft Fabric to create an end-to-end data solution. From leveraging Data Factory for data movement and orchestration, Notebooks to assist with data cleansing and further transformation, along with various engines such as Lakehouse and Power BI to complete the story. We look at how to get your data, get it into a usable form and possibly even reusing that data without having to copy with the end goal of providing reports and visualizations. We'll also look at other benefits where you can leverage the data for a complete solution.
Room 322Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Transform your business with integrated solutions using SQL database in Microsoft Fabric
The promise of SQL Database in Fabric is that it is simple, autonomous, and optimized for AI - but what does that mean for you and your organization? In this session we will explore how various personas can benefit from a deeply integrated operational database in Fabric. Discover how customers are using SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric today, and how Fabric databases can help you build innovative solutions in the age of AI, faster and easier than ever.
Room 325Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Fabric houses, when to go for Lakehouse or Warehouse (or both)?
Should you keep your data in the Fabric Lakehouse or the Warehouse? What are the pros and cons? In Fabric, all and any data is kept in the OneLake, and it is processed by one of the Fabric’s data engines. Choosing between Lakehouse and Warehouse (or both) is at the same time a strategic and performance impacting decision. • In this demo oriented session you will learn:
o Their distinctions and particular use cases
o When they overlap
o How to use them together
o When not to use one of them (or either)Room 322Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
Data Governance with Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Fabric
Managing data across large organizations can feel like an endless game of catch-up. Microsoft Purview and Fabric make it easier by giving teams tools to organize, protect, and share data without constant compliance headaches.
First, we’ll look at the challenges organizations face when data is scattered across silos with possible security gaps slowing everything down and creating possible regulatory concerns.
Next, we’ll see how Purview and Fabric work together to streamline data management by cataloging assets, enforcing protections, and making data easier to find.
Finally, we’ll show how this approach simplifies compliance, improves data accessibility, and supports better collaboration across teams.
Attendees will come away with a practical guide on using Microsoft Purview and Fabric to keep data organized, compliant, and useful.Room 323-324Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
Skills to Pay The Bills: Using AI Skills in Fabric
Have you struggled with the wide variety of ways to implement AI in and around your data? Which API to call? Which model to deploy? Where do I go for help? Did you know there are built-in AI skills in Microsoft Fabric that provide a single place for you to utilize AI in and around your Fabric data? Join me for this demo-rich 1-hour session as we learn about what AI skills can do for your data in Microsoft Fabric - and for you!
Room 340-342Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
Harness the Power of Microsoft Fabric and Notebooks
Microsoft Fabric gives us a notebook experience unlike any other previous Microsoft product. The power of notebooks is immense. Sure you can use data from your Lakehouse, Data Warehouse, or OneLake but what about PYODBC? Can we connect to a relational database without a Data Pipeline or a Data Flow? Could we just download a file from Kaggle or Github and start using Data Wrangler? Could we use Beautiful Soup to scrape data, load it into a Pandas data frame, and begin working with it? Can we invoke OpenAI models using GPT to glean new insights into our data? Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. Yes we can, and in this session you will learn how to harness the power of Microsoft Fabric Notebooks.
Room 323-324Thu 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Transform Your Business with Real-Time Intelligence: Microsoft Fabric Meets Dynamics 365
Abstract:
Imagine your Dynamics 365 data not just as a record-keeping system, but as a live, actionable resource driving real-time decisions across your organization. In this session, we’ll dive deep into how Microsoft Fabric enhances Dynamics 365 with real-time intelligence, enabling you to unlock new opportunities for operational efficiency and innovation.
We’ll start by demonstrating how to implement event sourcing to capture and process changes in Dynamics 365 in a real time fashion way, integrating into Microsoft Fabric’s powerful analytics and data integration capabilities. Using real client success stories, you’ll see how these patterns enable instant updates, real-time reporting, and proactive decision-making.
You’ll also experience live demos showcasing the full lifecycle of real-time data integration—from capturing events in Dynamics 365 and transforming them in Fabric pipelines, to visualizing actionable insights in Power BI and bringing them back into Dataverse to empower your teams.
In this session you will learn how event sourcing and modern integration patterns bring data to life, through real client success stories and live demos.
What You’ll Learn:
• How to set up real-time data pipelines between Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Fabric.
• Practical event-sourcing patterns for building seamless, scalable integrations.
• Techniques to surface actionable insights back into Dynamics 365 and Dataverse to empower decision-making.
• Best practices for operationalizing real-time intelligence with minimal disruption to your existing architecture.
Why Attend:
You’ll leave this session with a step-by-step understanding of how to create real-time intelligence solutions, backed by practical examples and real-world use cases. Whether you're a data professional, architect, or Dynamics 365 expert, this session will give you actionable tools and insights to take back to your organization.
Post-Session Outcomes:
• Start building your first real-time integration using Microsoft Fabric and Dynamics 365.
• Access resources, templates, and best practices shared during the session to accelerate your implementation.
• Connect with like-minded professionals to collaborate and share ideas.
Call to Action:
Don’t just learn—act! After the session, you’ll be encouraged to apply what you’ve seen, with resources and next steps to kickstart your real-time intelligence journey. Let’s turn your data into a strategic advantage!Room 322Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
How to Pitch Fabric to your Leadership
While executives are familiar with Power BI's impact on business intelligence, many remain unaware of how Microsoft Fabric revolutionizes the entire data value chain. This session bridges that knowledge gap, equipping data leaders with practical strategies to transform Fabric from "just another BI tool" into a compelling platform for enterprise-wide data transformation.
Learn how to build a clear, staged roadmap that starts with familiar Power BI territory and progressively demonstrates Fabric's game-changing capabilities in data integration, lakehouse architecture, and real-time analytics. Through real-world case studies, you'll see how leading organizations have successfully expanded from departmental BI to enterprise-wide data transformation using Fabric's unified platform.
We'll explore how to identify and prioritize quick wins that build momentum while laying the foundation for broader adoption. You'll learn effective techniques for quantifying ROI at each stage of implementation, addressing security and governance concerns, and managing organizational change from your existing data stack to Fabric's modern architecture.
Whether you're just starting to evaluate Fabric or looking to accelerate adoption, you'll leave with a practical blueprint for moving your organization beyond Power BI into the full potential of Microsoft's unified data platform.Room 340-342Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Microsoft Fabric and Azure Health Data Services
Bringing together diverse health data sources is essential for delivering healthcare solutions. Microsoft Fabric and Azure Health Data Services make it possible to integrate, manage, and analyze this data within a single platform to support patient care, claims processing, provider targeting, and more.
First, we'll explore the challenges in accessing and harmonizing various healthcare data types, highlighting how gaps in information can limit effective claims management, provider targeting, and timely interventions.
Next, we'll dive into how Fabric's advanced analytics capabilities enable the import and transformation of complex health datasets, including claims data and social determinants of health (SDOH).
Finally, we'll cover Azure Health Data Services' tools for securely exporting and managing health data, enhancing patient outreach, and supporting analytics for provider performance and network optimization. We'll see how combining Fabric's analytics with these services supports proactive care management, efficient claims handling, and strategic provider targeting.
Attendees will leave with a clear plan to use Microsoft Fabric and Azure Health Data Services for comprehensive healthcare data integration and analytics, enabling better patient care, improved claims processing, and effective provider engagement.Room 323-324Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Choosing the Right Data Store--An Overview of Azure Data Platform Choices
There are several different data platform solutions for use within your application. Selecting the right option can make the difference between a well-performing application and a poorly performing one; not to mention the cost aspect of choosing the wrong solution.
In this session we'll look at the options of Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Database Managed Instance, and Cosmos DB to see when these are all going to be the correct option, and when these aren't going to be the right option; both from a price and performance perspective.Room 320-321Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Power BI Storage Modes: The Ultimate Showdown
Power BI offers three different storage modes for data: Direct Query, Import and Direct Lake. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on the scenario and the requirements. But which one is the best overall? How do they compare in terms of performance, scalability, flexibility and ease of use?
In this session, we will put the three storage modes to the test in a series of challenges inspired by the Olympic Pentathlon. We will use real-world data sets and scenarios to measure how each storage mode handles different aspects of data analysis and visualization. We will also share some best practices and tips on how to choose the right storage mode for your project.
By the end of this session, you will have a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each storage mode, and you will be able to decide which one deserves the gold medal in your Power BI dashboard.Room 323-324Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Unleash the Power of SQL Database in Fabric: Innovate Without Limits Using the Free Trial
Curious about SQL Database in Fabric but unsure where to start? This session is your gateway to limitless innovation—completely free. Discover how to leverage the Fabric free trial to explore serverless computing, real-time analytics, and AI-powered insights—all without cost or commitment.
We’ll walk you through hands-on scenarios, best practices, and real-world workflows that showcase the full potential of SQL Database in Fabric. Learn how to automate processes, optimize performance, and seamlessly integrate SQL with other Fabric components to drive efficiency and scale effortlessly.
Whether you're a developer, data engineer, or tech innovator, this session will give you the tools to experiment, build, and unlock new capabilities—risk-free. Don't miss this opportunity to transform your data solutions and bring your ideas to life with zero barriers, zero cost, and endless possibilities.Room 347-348Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Handling Big Data with Power BI
When you started working in Power BI you only had a few million rows or data or the data latency requirements were non-existent. Now all of that has change, the data volume is billions of rows and/or data latency must be less than 5 seconds. How do you manage these challenges with Power BI. Join this demo-heavy session where we will explain and demonstrate how.
Room 320-321Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Data Processing Architecture: Key Design Principles & Considerations
In the era of big data, the design of data processing architecture is crucial for efficient data management and analysis. This presentation explores the fundamental principles and considerations essential for constructing robust data processing systems. Key design principles such as scalability, reliability, security, and flexibility are examined in detail.
The architecture's ability to handle varying data flows, ensure data integrity, and maintain security across multiple stages is emphasized. Additionally, the presentation discusses various architectural patterns, including data warehouses, data lakes, and data flow pipelines, highlighting their respective use cases and benefits.
Furthermore, the presentation contrasts traditional data processing architecture with the emerging concept of data mesh. While traditional architectures focus on centralized data processing and transformation, data mesh advocates for a decentralized approach, promoting domain-oriented data ownership and self-serve data infrastructure.
This comparison underscores the shift from monolithic data management to a more flexible and scalable architecture, addressing the diverse needs of modern data-driven organizations.
By adhering to these principles and considerations, data engineers can create systems that not only meet current data processing needs but are also adaptable to future technological advancements and data requirements.Room 322Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Migration Mystery Solved: Moving SSRS and SSAS to Power BI
Management has come to you and said that now is time to migrate your SSRS and SSAS assets to Power BI. Now you’re wondering about things like: where do I start? Is there planning that can be done to de-risk the migration? Are there tools that could help me with migration? Good News! There are places to start, there is planning that can be done, and yes, there are tools that can help with migrations. We will also discuss P SKU to F SKU migration as a lot of customers are facing that challenge now as well.
During this session we are going to guide you through the migration process by covering:
• Assessing your current environment
• Planning your migration strategy
• Selecting the right tools
• Executing the migration in phases
• Validating and optimizing the migration and its processesRoom 343-344Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Unified DevOps for Microsoft Fabric, Azure SQL, and SQL Server with next-gen SQL projects
With Microsoft.Build.Sql SDK-style SQL projects, your database objects are stored as code for seamless development in Microsoft Fabric and client tools like VS Code and Visual Studio, but the advantages don’t stop there. The modernized SQL projects format backs Fabric’s git integration and deployment pipelines for Data Warehouse and SQL database, providing interoperability with extended CI/CD capabilities and your existing DevOps investments for SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, and Synapse Data Warehouse. SQL project’s code analysis and other build-time tests validate database code quality and correctness during continuous integration of code changes. With SQL projects delivering database object updates is easier and more reliable whether you're managing one database or a fleet of databases because the deployment plan is dynamically calculated through the SqlPackage CLI. In this session we’ll learn how to leverage the Fabric experiences for database DevOps in addition to the depth of capabilities from SQL projects such that we can efficiently develop and deploy database changes with source control integration, all with the tools you love.
Room 347-348Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
SQL Server 2025: The Enterprise AI ready database
Come learn about the latest information for SQL Server 2025, now in preview. You will learn how to bring AI to your data with AI applications using built-in vector capabilities ground to cloud. In addition, you will learn about new enhancements for developers including JSON, RegEx, REST API, GraphQL, Change Streaming. You will also learn about all the new engine features for security, performance, and availability. You will also see how to integrate your SQL Server 2025 experience using the new SSMS21 and SSMS Copilot.
Room 343-344Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
Supercharge your analytics with Microsoft Fabric Real Time Intelligence
For many years, data has been primarily batch loaded from sources on fixed schedules, resulting in operational challenges, outdated data, and delayed insights. The introduction of Lambda architecture aimed to mitigate these issues by accelerating some data processing. Now, with Microsoft Real Time Intelligence, we can easily enhance analytics architecture to easily integrate "hot-path" approaches to make data available faster.
In this instructional session, we will explore how to integrate event sourcing and other microservices patterns to achieve real-time data integration using Microsoft Fabric. Attendees will learn practical techniques and best practices for implementing these patterns to ensure seamless and efficient data flow.Room 323-324Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Make your solution sparkle with the medallion architecture
As a data engineer you spend a lot of time transforming data into data models that in turn will be used to provide insights to your organization. As the lines between the technical and business roles become more and more blurred it is even more important to establish a solid data architecture.
In this session we will demystify the medallion architecture and its different layers. We will showcase how you can use it in your solutions like Azure Databricks or Microsoft Fabric as well as digging into the benefits of using a non-technical approach when collaboration between different data roles increases even more.
If you are a data engineer, a data analyst, a business analyst or a business representative consuming analytical data, this session is for you. You will by the end of this session identify how your data flows through the layers of the medallion architecture and what data to use for different use cases.Room 320-321Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Revolutionizing Data in Motion w/ Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric
If you work with data, you're generally dealing with two types of data: data in motion and data at rest. While we have many time-tested solutions for dealing with our data at rest, it hasn't been simple or straightforward to deal with data in motion - yet.
Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric opens the door to some truly innovative, low-code approaches to dealing with your data in motion, whether that data is in ETL processes, streaming data, or something else entirely. Join me for this hands-on walkthrough to RTI - what it is, what it isn't, and what it can do for you.Room 322Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Harnessing the Power of Data Mesh: A Deep Dive into the Four Pillars of Modern Data Architecture
Abstract:
In today's data-driven world, traditional data management approaches often struggle to keep pace with the growing complexity and scale of enterprise data. Enter Data Mesh, a revolutionary paradigm that redefines how organizations handle data. This session will explore the four foundational pillars of Data Mesh architecture: Domain-Oriented Decentralization, Data as a Product, Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, and Federated Computational Governance.
We'll delve into how Domain-Oriented Decentralization empowers teams to own and manage their data, fostering agility and innovation. Discover the concept of Data as a Product, where data is treated with the same rigor and care as any other product, ensuring quality and usability. Learn about Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, which democratizes data access and tooling, enabling teams to work independently and efficiently. Finally, understand the importance of Federated Computational Governance in maintaining security, compliance, and consistency across decentralized data environments.
Join us to gain insights into implementing Data Mesh in your organization, transforming your data strategy, and unlocking the full potential of your data assets.Room 323-324Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
AI and SQL ground to cloud to fabric
New to AI? Come learn the fundamentals of how to get started with AI and Microsoft SQL everywhere it exists: ground to cloud to fabric. This includes SQL Server 2025, Azure SQL, and SQL database in Fabric. SQL is the perfect place to integrate data with AI because of its industry proven security, scalability, and availability. We will show GenAI capabilities like vector search, how to integrate these with your application, and Copilot experiences everywhere SQL exists including GitHub Copilot.
Room 347-348Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
The evolution of Data Engineering with Microsoft Fabric's Native Engine
As data volumes and processing demands grow, traditional data engineering approaches face increasing challenges in scalability, performance, and cost efficiency. Microsoft Fabric’s Native Execution Engine is redefining the landscape by breaking away from JVM constraints, leveraging high-performance C++ execution, and seamlessly integrating with Apache Spark, Velox, and Gluten.
In this 70-minute session, we will explore how Fabric’s Native Engine optimizes SQL execution, accelerates ETL pipelines and live queries, and enhances real-time analytics across various data formats, diverse operators, and complex transformations. We’ll also analyze a few query execution patterns, demonstrating where the biggest performance gains can be achieved.Room 322Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm -
Roadmap for developers in Fabric: Writing a CRUD App using SQL database, API for GraphQL and User Da
Discover how to harness the full potential of Fabric to build powerful modern data-driven applications. In this session participants will learn how to use the API for GraphQL and User Data Functions over SQL databases and other data sources in the Microsoft Fabric Platform to build modern “CRUD” (Create, Read Update and Delete) data APIs that you can immediately call from an application. APIs for GraphQL enable you to effortlessly connect your Fabric data with your applications, with only a few clicks. If you have more complex business logic for your data, you can implement it with Python User Data Functions. With these two powerful building blocks and a SaaS-ified, developer-friendly experience, your app will be up and running in no time!
Room 323-324Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm -
Unleashing Modern Data Warehousing: Architecture, Insights & Future Innovations in Fabric Warehouse
Join us for a deep dive into the modern data warehouse! We’ll break down the core principles, use cases, and architectural intricacies. Discover how innovations like Data Virtualization, enhanced Data Modeling experiences, AI-powered insights with Copilot, and more are helping developers and customers unlock the full potential of Fabric Warehouse. This session is packed with live demos, best practices, and an exciting glimpse into the future roadmap of Data Warehousing.
Room 325Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm -
Build AI Apps Smarter: Optimize SQL Database Costs & Performance in Fabric
Take your AI apps to the next level with cost-smart SQL database optimization in Fabric. This session explores how to maximize performance while minimizing costs by leveraging Fabric's capacity monitoring tools for SQL databases. Learn to track resource usage, identify inefficiencies, and optimize database performance—all without exceeding your budget. Designed for app developers, architects, and innovators, this talk will provide real-world strategies to build scalable, high-performing AI apps powered by intelligent SQL database cost management. Discover how to turn insights into action and supercharge your AI applications with Fabric
Room 347-348Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm -
Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric - Overview and Roadmap
Microsoft Fabric accelerates data potential for the era for AI. Mirroring simplifies linking of external databases into Fabric, with full replicas created with just a couple of clicks. Once a database is mirrored, real-time updates will automatically be replicated into OneLake and stored as Delta Parquet, an analytics-ready format that works seamlessly for every analytics workload in Fabric. Join us to gain deeper insights and learn how to get started with Mirroring by bringing data gravity to unlock powerful insights in Fabric.
Room 323-324Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm -
Realtime product review data analysis for Retail using Fabric RTI, Purview and Azure Open AI
This session focuses on leveraging Microsoft Fabric's Real-Time Intelligence and Generative AI capabilities to monitor and analyze streaming customer review data in retail. Participants will learn how to:
1. Ingest and process streaming data from customer reviews in real-time.
2. Utilize AI agents to detect anomalies in sentiment trends and unusual patterns.
3. Generate insights using Microsoft Fabric’s Real-Time Intelligence, Co-Pilot Studio, and ML notebooks.Room 340-342Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm
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Design a Well-Architected Fabric Solution: A Medallion First Approach
Transform your data solutions with a streamlined Medallion Architecture using Microsoft Fabric. This session is tailored for professionals familiar with Power BI and basic dataflows, providing a step-by-step guide to implementing Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers for a scalable and maintainable pipeline. Learn how to evolve an unstructured dataflow and semantic model into a comprehensive architecture. Familiarity with Python or SQL is a bonus but not required.
Modules:
• Overview of Medallion Architecture: Gain a clear understanding of Warehouses and Lakehouses, their role within Microsoft Fabric, and how they enable Medallion Architecture.
• Understanding OneLake: Dive into OneLake and explore its foundational storage structure, including Delta tables and Parquet. Understand key features like columnar storage, Delta optimizations, and performance enhancements through simple, no-code explanations.
• Feature Showdown: Compare and contrast key tools in Microsoft Fabric, such as SQL vs. Spark, Notebooks vs. Dataflows vs. Pipelines, and Warehouses vs. Lakehouses, to determine the best fit for your scenarios.
• Well-Designed Architecture & Best Practices:
Learn about GIT integration, monitoring techniques, and actionable best practices for designing scalable and maintainable data architectures.
Labs:
• Build a Lakehouse and create a Medallion Architecture pipeline.
• Extract raw data using Pipelines (Bronze).
• Clean and transform data with Spark Notebooks (Silver).
• Add business logic with T-SQL (Gold).
• Create orchestration and monitor pipelines for optimal performance.
• Bonus Lab: Create and manage a semantic model and integrate it with GIT for version control.Room 323-324Tue 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Maximize efficiency in your data-driven projects by leveraging AI and Copilot technologies.
In the Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Fabric study, the composite organization based on data from four companies using Fabric showed an increase in data engineer and data scientist productivity of up to 50%, plus a 15% increase in business analyst productivity.
In this workshop, we will explore the transformative potential of various copilots, AI services within Microsoft Fabric. It covers live demos and hands on experience on Microsoft Fabric Copilots, AI Skills, Fabric integration with AI and GenAI services.
Participants will thoroughly explore the Copilot maturity framework and learn strategies to overcome adoption challenges, enabling customers to maximize the benefits of Copilots.Room 347-348Tue 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm -
Microsoft Fabric: Ultimate Data Security for Robust Data Warehousing
This session delves into the advanced security features of Microsoft Fabric, specifically designed for data warehousing. Attendees will learn how to classify and protect sensitive data using sensitivity labels and policies in Microsoft Purview.
The session will cover the implementation of Row-Level Security (RLS) to restrict access at the row level, ensuring users only see data relevant to their roles. Additionally, it will explore Column-Level Security (CLS) to secure specific columns in datasets, providing an extra layer of protection for sensitive information.
Participants will also discover how to use data masking techniques to obfuscate sensitive data, making it unreadable to unauthorized users while maintaining usability for authorized personnel. The session will emphasize aligning data warehousing practices with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA, leveraging Microsoft Fabric’s compliance tools and features.
Join us to gain a comprehensive understanding of how to secure your data warehouse end-to-end within Microsoft Fabric.Room 340-342Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Generate self-service governance dashboard using Microsoft Fabric and Purview
1. Data Ingestion & Integration
Utilize Microsoft Fabric’s OneLake to unify governance data from Purview, M365, and third-party data sources.
Implement Synapse Data Engineering to transform governance metadata into structured insights.
2. Governance Metrics & Compliance Monitoring
Define key governance KPIs, including:
* Data Quality Scores (accuracy, completeness, consistency).
* Compliance Status (GDPR, HIPAA, industry-specific regulations).
* Data Lineage & Sensitivity Labels (metadata classification).
* User Access & Data Usage Trends.
3. Self-Service Dashboard with Purview
Integrate Purview with Fabric for real-time metadata visualization.
Design interactive dashboards in Power BI with drill-down capabilities for governance teams.
Enable role-based access control for different user personas (CIO, Data Stewards, Compliance Officers).Room 340-342Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Build an end-to-end data solution with Microsoft Fabric
In this session, we will explore how to leverage Microsoft Fabric to create an end-to-end data solution. From leveraging Data Factory for data movement and orchestration, Notebooks to assist with data cleansing and further transformation, along with various engines such as Lakehouse and Power BI to complete the story. We look at how to get your data, get it into a usable form and possibly even reusing that data without having to copy with the end goal of providing reports and visualizations. We'll also look at other benefits where you can leverage the data for a complete solution.
Room 322Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
PowerBI, DirectQuery and SQL Server. It is a good choice?
You will learn best practices, tips and tricks on how to successfully use SQL databases (OnPremise,IaaS, PaaS,SQL Managed Instance) with PowerBI on production environments.
How improve the performance, using for example, Read-Scale, HyperScale or Synapse, partitioning, ColumnStoreIndexes, Indexed views, etc..
How to monitor and diagnostic your database and find out issues with Query Data Store. These learnings are fruit of Microsoft CSS support cases, and customer field engagements.Room 323-324Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Visualization Magic in the Age of Numbers & Science
Power BI is a great sandbox environment for report design. However, knowing how to leverage visuals and features in a way that adds additional value can be challenging. New visualizations and features can be created a number of ways including: layering visuals, customizing visual formatting, and/or utilizing DAX measures. The session will include a series of visualization and reporting techniques that you'll be able to leverage in your company's reports to take them to the next level.
Room 325Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
Transform Your Business with Real-Time Intelligence: Microsoft Fabric Meets Dynamics 365
Abstract:
Imagine your Dynamics 365 data not just as a record-keeping system, but as a live, actionable resource driving real-time decisions across your organization. In this session, we’ll dive deep into how Microsoft Fabric enhances Dynamics 365 with real-time intelligence, enabling you to unlock new opportunities for operational efficiency and innovation.
We’ll start by demonstrating how to implement event sourcing to capture and process changes in Dynamics 365 in a real time fashion way, integrating into Microsoft Fabric’s powerful analytics and data integration capabilities. Using real client success stories, you’ll see how these patterns enable instant updates, real-time reporting, and proactive decision-making.
You’ll also experience live demos showcasing the full lifecycle of real-time data integration—from capturing events in Dynamics 365 and transforming them in Fabric pipelines, to visualizing actionable insights in Power BI and bringing them back into Dataverse to empower your teams.
In this session you will learn how event sourcing and modern integration patterns bring data to life, through real client success stories and live demos.
What You’ll Learn:
• How to set up real-time data pipelines between Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Fabric.
• Practical event-sourcing patterns for building seamless, scalable integrations.
• Techniques to surface actionable insights back into Dynamics 365 and Dataverse to empower decision-making.
• Best practices for operationalizing real-time intelligence with minimal disruption to your existing architecture.
Why Attend:
You’ll leave this session with a step-by-step understanding of how to create real-time intelligence solutions, backed by practical examples and real-world use cases. Whether you're a data professional, architect, or Dynamics 365 expert, this session will give you actionable tools and insights to take back to your organization.
Post-Session Outcomes:
• Start building your first real-time integration using Microsoft Fabric and Dynamics 365.
• Access resources, templates, and best practices shared during the session to accelerate your implementation.
• Connect with like-minded professionals to collaborate and share ideas.
Call to Action:
Don’t just learn—act! After the session, you’ll be encouraged to apply what you’ve seen, with resources and next steps to kickstart your real-time intelligence journey. Let’s turn your data into a strategic advantage!Room 322Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Avoid Data Silos! Best Practices for Implementing Shared Semantic Models
In this presentation, we will explore how to create effective shared semantic models in Power BI and how to manage them in the Power BI Service. Shared semantic models can help reduce the cost and complexity of fragmented data, also known as data silos, within an organization. By using shared semantic models, developers can save time and resources by only having to maintain a single semantic model instead of multiple unique ones. Additionally, shared semantic models can prevent discrepancies and ensure consistent logic across reports. We will also cover how to configure semantic models for enhanced user experiences, enable row level security (RLS) to protect sensitive data, publish semantic models for optimal sharing and distribution, and promote or certify semantic models for increased exposure.
Room 345-346Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Handling Big Data with Power BI
When you started working in Power BI you only had a few million rows or data or the data latency requirements were non-existent. Now all of that has change, the data volume is billions of rows and/or data latency must be less than 5 seconds. How do you manage these challenges with Power BI. Join this demo-heavy session where we will explain and demonstrate how.
Room 320-321Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Migration Mystery Solved: Moving SSRS and SSAS to Power BI
Management has come to you and said that now is time to migrate your SSRS and SSAS assets to Power BI. Now you’re wondering about things like: where do I start? Is there planning that can be done to de-risk the migration? Are there tools that could help me with migration? Good News! There are places to start, there is planning that can be done, and yes, there are tools that can help with migrations. We will also discuss P SKU to F SKU migration as a lot of customers are facing that challenge now as well.
During this session we are going to guide you through the migration process by covering:
• Assessing your current environment
• Planning your migration strategy
• Selecting the right tools
• Executing the migration in phases
• Validating and optimizing the migration and its processesRoom 343-344Thu 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Introduction to Version Control, GIT, and Power BI Developer mode
This session will guide you through the basics of version control, ensuring you understand its significance for efficient Power BI project management. We will introduce you to GIT, a widely used version control system, without delving into intricate code or overly technical jargon.
In just one hour, you will gain a genuine grasp of how it all works.
Key Topics Covered:
- Demystifying Version Control: We'll explain version control in plain language, emphasizing why it's pivotal for successful Power BI projects.
- An Introduction to GIT: Get a straightforward overview of GIT, without getting bogged down in technical details. Discover why it's so popular and beneficial.
- The Power of Power BI Developer Mode: Understand how the new Power BI Developer Mode simplifies development and collaboration, without diving into intricate coding.
- Version Control in Power BI: Not all users need GIT, so understand the options for all projects and different methods available.
- Practical Tips for Success: We'll share practical insights and straightforward tips for effectively using version control in Power BI.
Suitable for any data analyst, a Power BI developer, BI enthusiast, or anyone looking to understand enterprise features.Room 325Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
Mastering Elastic Database Pools: Best Practices and Troubleshooting from Microsoft Support
Join us for an in-depth exploration of Elastic Database Pools, the game-changing technology that empowers developers and DBAs to efficiently manage and scale their databases. In this session, we'll delve into best practices and strategies for leveraging Elastic Database Pools to optimize your workload management and improve performance.
Drawing from real-world support cases at Microsoft, we'll demonstrate the significant impact and benefits of using Elastic Database Pools in various scenarios. Our talk will also cover essential troubleshooting techniques to identify and resolve incidents effectively.
Plus, don't miss our live demos showcasing practical examples and code in multiple programming languages. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a DBA looking to enhance your toolkit, this session is tailored for you! Gain valuable insights, practical tips.Room 325Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
The Power of Semantic Layers: Ensuring Reliable and Governed BI
Developers often create excellent reports, only to be asked for data exports to Excel.
Ultimately, users want only one thing: easy access to data that helps them do their job. While Power BI reports and dashboards are powerful, they can't answer every question. Users may need to create their own reports, build Excel pivots, or extract data for other processes.
These needs must be met securely and consistently, avoiding governance bypass, duplicated calculations, or compromised security.
Enter the Semantic Layer.
The semantic layer connects Power BI and Microsoft Fabric back-end systems to end users, offering secure, governed, and user-friendly data access. Certified semantic models means that the content meets the organisation's quality standards and can be regarded as reliable, authoritative, and ready for use across the organisation.
This session will cover:
1. What is a Semantic Model?
Define the semantic layer, its components, and its role in self-service BI.
2. The Certification Process
Explore the structured, repeatable steps required to certify semantic models. This introduces the certification process map and checklist - a list of best practices a model requires to pass to be certified.
3. Deep dive into the Certification Checklist
Learn some common best practices, optimization tips, security considerations, and practical advice for building robust semantic models.
Who Should Attend?
This session is for Data Analysts, Data Engineers, and BI Developers aiming to upgrade models to meet enterprise business and self service needs.
Led by Steve Campbell, a Microsoft MVP and co-owner of a Microsoft data consultancy. Steve previously led data analytics for large-scale EMEA platform implementations.
Key Takeaways
- Understand the Role of Semantic Models.
- Learn the Certification Process and a repeatable framework for ensuring your models meet organisational standards.
- Take away practical tips for optimisation, security, and best practices.Room 340-342Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Harnessing the Power of Data Mesh: A Deep Dive into the Four Pillars of Modern Data Architecture
Abstract:
In today's data-driven world, traditional data management approaches often struggle to keep pace with the growing complexity and scale of enterprise data. Enter Data Mesh, a revolutionary paradigm that redefines how organizations handle data. This session will explore the four foundational pillars of Data Mesh architecture: Domain-Oriented Decentralization, Data as a Product, Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, and Federated Computational Governance.
We'll delve into how Domain-Oriented Decentralization empowers teams to own and manage their data, fostering agility and innovation. Discover the concept of Data as a Product, where data is treated with the same rigor and care as any other product, ensuring quality and usability. Learn about Self-Serve Data Infrastructure, which democratizes data access and tooling, enabling teams to work independently and efficiently. Finally, understand the importance of Federated Computational Governance in maintaining security, compliance, and consistency across decentralized data environments.
Join us to gain insights into implementing Data Mesh in your organization, transforming your data strategy, and unlocking the full potential of your data assets.Room 323-324Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am
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Accelerate Intelligent App Development with SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric
Discover the new SQL database in Microsoft Fabric, where seamless setup and an integrated development environment enable you to quickly leverage the power of an AI-driven data platform. Provision and deploy an autonomous database with built-in security in seconds, featuring automatic setup.
In this session, we'll delve into the potential of SQL database in Fabric, which combines the enterprise-scale features and capabilities of the Azure SQL Database engine with the autonomous management and ease-of-use advantages of the Microsoft Fabric data estate.
We'll uncover core functionalities, best practices, and real-world strategies to integrate your database with other Fabric workloads, creating a tailored, high-impact data stack that empowers your solutions to thrive within the Fabric ecosystem.Room 322Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Getting started with SQL database in Fabric
Microsoft Fabric, the unified data platform, now includes an operational database solution and it is SQL! Come learn all the fundamentals of how this solution is the same and different from other SQL deployment options. We will also show you the value of using SQL in the Fabric ecosystem including developer experiences, automation, monitoring, and integration for AI applications.
Room 325Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Transform your business with integrated solutions using SQL database in Microsoft Fabric
The promise of SQL Database in Fabric is that it is simple, autonomous, and optimized for AI - but what does that mean for you and your organization? In this session we will explore how various personas can benefit from a deeply integrated operational database in Fabric. Discover how customers are using SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric today, and how Fabric databases can help you build innovative solutions in the age of AI, faster and easier than ever.
Room 325Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Unleash the Power of SQL Database in Fabric: Innovate Without Limits Using the Free Trial
Curious about SQL Database in Fabric but unsure where to start? This session is your gateway to limitless innovation—completely free. Discover how to leverage the Fabric free trial to explore serverless computing, real-time analytics, and AI-powered insights—all without cost or commitment.
We’ll walk you through hands-on scenarios, best practices, and real-world workflows that showcase the full potential of SQL Database in Fabric. Learn how to automate processes, optimize performance, and seamlessly integrate SQL with other Fabric components to drive efficiency and scale effortlessly.
Whether you're a developer, data engineer, or tech innovator, this session will give you the tools to experiment, build, and unlock new capabilities—risk-free. Don't miss this opportunity to transform your data solutions and bring your ideas to life with zero barriers, zero cost, and endless possibilities.Room 347-348Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
AI and SQL ground to cloud to fabric
New to AI? Come learn the fundamentals of how to get started with AI and Microsoft SQL everywhere it exists: ground to cloud to fabric. This includes SQL Server 2025, Azure SQL, and SQL database in Fabric. SQL is the perfect place to integrate data with AI because of its industry proven security, scalability, and availability. We will show GenAI capabilities like vector search, how to integrate these with your application, and Copilot experiences everywhere SQL exists including GitHub Copilot.
Room 347-348Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Roadmap for developers in Fabric: Writing a CRUD App using SQL database, API for GraphQL and User Da
Discover how to harness the full potential of Fabric to build powerful modern data-driven applications. In this session participants will learn how to use the API for GraphQL and User Data Functions over SQL databases and other data sources in the Microsoft Fabric Platform to build modern “CRUD” (Create, Read Update and Delete) data APIs that you can immediately call from an application. APIs for GraphQL enable you to effortlessly connect your Fabric data with your applications, with only a few clicks. If you have more complex business logic for your data, you can implement it with Python User Data Functions. With these two powerful building blocks and a SaaS-ified, developer-friendly experience, your app will be up and running in no time!
Room 323-324Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm -
Build AI Apps Smarter: Optimize SQL Database Costs & Performance in Fabric
Take your AI apps to the next level with cost-smart SQL database optimization in Fabric. This session explores how to maximize performance while minimizing costs by leveraging Fabric's capacity monitoring tools for SQL databases. Learn to track resource usage, identify inefficiencies, and optimize database performance—all without exceeding your budget. Designed for app developers, architects, and innovators, this talk will provide real-world strategies to build scalable, high-performing AI apps powered by intelligent SQL database cost management. Discover how to turn insights into action and supercharge your AI applications with Fabric
Room 347-348Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm
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Database Administration for the Non Database Administrator
In this all day session on Microsoft SQL Server we will be learning about how Microsoft SQL Server works, both in Azure and on-premises, and what needs to be done to keep it up and running smoothly when you don't have a full-time database administrator on staff to help you keep it running.
In this session, we will cover a variety of topics, including backups, upgrade paths, indexing, database maintenance, database corruption, patching, virtualization, disk configurations, high availability, database security, database mail, anti-viruses, scheduled jobs, and much, much more.
From a product perspective, we'll examine SQL Server in an Azure VM, Azure SQL DB, and Azure SQL DB Managed Instance, as well as the on-prem options, including SQL Server on-premises options, including Azure Arc hosted deployments.
After taking this full-day session on SQL Server you'll be prepared to take the information that we go over and get back to the office, get the SQL Server's patched and properly configured so that they run without giving you problems for years to come.Room 343-344Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Intro to T-SQL Data Manipulation Language
From early database management systems to modern data platforms like Microsoft Fabric, SQL has withstood the test of time. This language can be powerful in its navigation of data relationships, calculation of detailed or aggregate values, or adjustment of records stored in tables. All of these capabilities fall under the term Data Manipulation Language (DML). This language can enable many data practitioners, from engineers and citizen developers, to harness their data and bend it to their needs.
Suppose you have not had the opportunity to learn SQL DML and would find use for your work. This introductory course to Microsoft's version of SQL, called Transact SQL or T-SQL, is a great place to start. Join this workshop to learn T-SQL DML from the ground up, starting with the SELECT statement and all of its primary clauses.Room 320-321Tue 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Execution plans explained
You probably have some tricks up your sleeve for dealing with slow queries. Index the columns in the join and where. Rewrite the WHERE clause to enable index usage. Tinker with the join order, or perhaps even break up the query in smaller parts. Those tricks work. Sometimes. Not always. And when they don't, your job suddenly gets frustrating!
Sometimes, you wish you knew WHY a query is slow. So that you can target your changes exactly right, at precisely the root cause of the slowness. And the good news is, there already exists a way to find the root cause of bad performance. You "only" need to learn to work with execution plans
In this full-day workshop, you will learn everything you need. You will learn what execution plans are, and where you can find them. You will learn the basics of how to read execution plans. And you will learn all you need about all of the commonly encountered operators in execution plans: what their function is, how they operate, and what effect that has on performance.
In short: After attending this workshop, you will know how to obtain an execution plan for a slow running query, and you will know how to look at that plan and find the spot where it hurts, so that you know what to do to fix the performance issue.
Regardless of whether you have never seen an execution plan before, or whether you already have experience working with execution plans, this workshop will teach you how to look at an execution plan and then KNOW why your query is slow ... and what you can do to fix that!Room 343-344Tue 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Query Store and Azure SQL Copilot, who is the fairest in the land?
Query store + Azure SQL Copilot, which is the baddest query in my instance.
On-premises or Azure, it doesn't matter, Query Store will help you finding out how your queries are performing.
Get your performance to the next level knowing how to digg into Query Store data. Understand how it works, and how you can use Query Store data to solve performance issues and detect problems before they create a situation.
Do you want to know how to mine Query Store: plans, queries?
Learn how to get the best of it in an instance with several databases.
We will also discuss the available options for troubleshooting using Azure SQL Copilot
Based on Microsoft support experience.Room 340-342Tue 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm -
Infrastructure for Data Professionals: An Introduction
It doesn’t matter if you are a Junior DBA, an accidental DBA or all the way up to a Senior DBA, the infrastructure your SQL Server environment runs on is important. Many among the DBA community came in as developers or perhaps directly into database administration roles it is equally possible that you have been out of the operations world long enough to have fallen out of the loop with what is happening. This session is intended to provide a full stack infrastructure overview so that you can talk shop with your cohorts in operations to resolve issues and maybe even be proactive. We will discuss, in an introductory fashion, hardware, network, storage, virtualization and operating system layers. Additionally, some suggestions as to where to find more information will be provided.
Room 325Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Indexing Internals for Developers & DBAs
What are the secrets to making your queries run faster? Why does SQL Server use an index for some queries and not for others? What makes a good index? How many indexes should I have? Have you ever asked these questions? When you want to understand an application you look at its core architecture. Underneath the covers SQL Server is just a C++ application. Together we will discuss how the application architecture of SQL Server works, and how to apply this logic to building the best indexes for your queries.
Room 343-344Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Deployments aren’t enough – databases deserve a development process
How quickly can you take your database and examine its code? Database-as-code is not a new concept, but all too often we focus only on being able to apply changes to the database instead of having a development process that ensures that we’re making good database changes. A more wholistic development process offers early warnings of antipatterns via code analysis and increases our confidence even on mature databases with deployment “practice runs” and unit tests. In this session we’ll discuss the components of a database development cycle through the lens of Microsoft.Build.Sql projects and what capabilities we should expect to deliver database object updates easily and more reliably.
Room 347-348Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
PowerBI, DirectQuery and SQL Server. It is a good choice?
You will learn best practices, tips and tricks on how to successfully use SQL databases (OnPremise,IaaS, PaaS,SQL Managed Instance) with PowerBI on production environments.
How improve the performance, using for example, Read-Scale, HyperScale or Synapse, partitioning, ColumnStoreIndexes, Indexed views, etc..
How to monitor and diagnostic your database and find out issues with Query Data Store. These learnings are fruit of Microsoft CSS support cases, and customer field engagements.Room 323-324Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Now Where Did THAT Estimate Come From?
The SQL Server Query Optimizer makes its plan choices based on estimated rowcounts. If those estimates are wrong, the optimizer will very likely produce a poor plan. And there's nothing you can do about it. Or is there?
In this session, you will learn exactly where these estimates come from. You will gain intimate knowledge of how statistics are built and maintained and how they are used to estimate row counts. But you will also learn how filters and joins influence those estimates.
Though the focus of this session is on understanding the cause of bad estimates, you will also learn ways to fix the problems and get better estimates - and hence, better performing queries.Room 343-344Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Learn how to troubleshoot SQL Server like a Microsoft engineer would
How many times have you wished that you could self-diagnose a really strange issue with your SQL Server, that did not seem to be related to typical reasons like missing indexes, query plans, lock blocking, etc.?
- Maybe you are seeing unexplained high CPU usage.
- Maybe you have blocking, but it's on a really strange wait type that you've never seen before and does not show up in your web searches.
- Maybe you are seeing unusually high memory consumption in a memory clerk that you have never heard of?
You get the idea - all of us have had these head-scratching moments. Having the right tools and techniques at your disposal is crucial for diagnosing and resolving these issues efficiently and on time. Join us for an in-depth exploration of SQL Server extended events, wait statistics, call stack information, and debugging symbols. We will demonstrate how to leverage these powerful tools to gain a comprehensive understanding of the root causes behind various issues like the ones described above.
This will not be an introductory or general troubleshooting session. It assumes that you are familiar with the usual tools of the trade and want to know more. In other words, you are asking yourself - "can I do what the Microsoft support engineer would do"?
Through real-world scenarios and hands-on demonstrations, you will learn how to apply these tools effectively to diagnose and resolve SQL Server performance issues. By the end of this session, you will be equipped with a robust toolkit which will help you get a deeper understanding of SQL Server internals. And who knows, you might just be able to skip that support call to Microsoft and be the hero who saved the day!Room 347-348Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Everything you need to know about Data Virtualization in Azure SQL Database
Learn everything you need to know about Data Virtualization, OPENROWSET, External tables, parquet, Delta, best practices, how to access external data using Azure SQL Database, export cold data, and create your very own data tiering solution.
Room 320-321Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
Code Changes That Eliminate SQL Server Performance Complaints
Your queries are running so slowly that people are upset. You need some help!
Over the past twenty years, I have focused my career on SQL Server performance and query tuning. I have learned that you can rewrite slowly running queries to get the same results while significantly reducing compute and run-time. Most slowly running queries fall into familiar patterns DBAs like to call Anti-Patterns. We will cover how to identify several patterns and include solutions you can implement to improve your query performance today!Room 343-344Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
Worst code ever! Reviewing real-world examples that mandated refactoring.
This session looks at SQL Code that couldn't be tuned without a rewrite, working through why it was bad, why the optimizer couldn't deal with it appropriately, and what needed to be done to fix it.
Room 347-348Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
TSQL Best Practices Through Behavior Analysis
Ever wonder why your query behaves a certain way? Looking at the behavior of your query can lead you down a path to tuning. As with all queries, different servers will behave differently. With all those permutations (CPU, Memory, disk type, etc.) you can easily give up. But with these best practices you learn here, you have a shot at getting more consistent behavior by following them. I will show you what to look for and how to affect the behavior through better TSQL. Join me in a quest to write and tune queries by looking at how they behave.
Room 320-321Thu 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Performance and execution plan improvements in SQL Server 2025
SQL Server 2025 was announced in November 2024, and will probably be in preview, or perhaps already released, at the time of this conference. Join execution plan expert Hugo Kornelis as he takes an in-depth look at all the new features that affect query performance and execution plans.
Room 343-344Thu 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Choosing the Right Data Store--An Overview of Azure Data Platform Choices
There are several different data platform solutions for use within your application. Selecting the right option can make the difference between a well-performing application and a poorly performing one; not to mention the cost aspect of choosing the wrong solution.
In this session we'll look at the options of Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Database Managed Instance, and Cosmos DB to see when these are all going to be the correct option, and when these aren't going to be the right option; both from a price and performance perspective.Room 320-321Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
A Query Runs Through It: An Introduction to the SQL Server Engine
Have you ever wondered what happens inside SQL Server when you execute that query you wrote? This session will serve as an introduction to what is going on under the hood, commonly called SQL Server Internals. Whether writing queries or tuning them, SQL Server internals knowledge is highly valuable in Azure VMs or SQL DB, AWS, GCP, and on-premises as the SQL Server engine is the same. Together we will dip into why data types matter, ponder pages, sample the storage engine, and ponder the query processor as we see what happens when your query runs.
Room 343-344Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Indexing for Performance
What does the optimizer actually do with an index, what do the index structures look like, and what can e do to optimize index performance? This session covers index internals and optimizer limitations
Room 322Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
Approximate functions: How do they work?
Sometimes, a close approximation is good enough. And sometimes, a close approximation is a lot faster. Microsoft has introduced “Approximate Query Processing” (the APPROX_COUNT_DISTINCT and APPROX_PERCENTILE functions) to give you exactly that benefit when you don't need exact answers.
But do you have a good response when you propose to use this function and your manager asks you to explain how they work first? Or is your only option to claim "black magic by smart Microsoft engineers"?
The algorithms used are not a secret. HyperLogLog and KLL Sketch. And now you most likely know exactly as much as you already knew before. And when you google for those terms ... you end up with a headache.
Time to join me for a session where I explain the black magic in the simplest possible terms, so that you can then explain it to your manager!Room 343-344Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Real Time Monitoring with Real-life Use Cases using Database Watcher
In this session, we are going to show you how easy it is to use Database Watcher, a cloud-native and cross-platform solution that supports multiple database types, versions, and platforms, to set up proactive database monitoring and collect deep and rich data. You will see how Database Watcher provides easy to understand visualizations, with near real time monitoring, which can help you optimize your database performance, availability, and health.
During this session we will cover the following with you:
- Brief overview of Database Watcher architecture
- Delve into real scenarios with Database Watcher dashboards
- Create custom dashboards for custom scenarios
- Using the power of KQL to query the raw monitoring data
Join us in this session and discover how Database Watcher can help you take your DBA career to the next level by enabling you to proactively monitor, troubleshoot, and improve your database operations.Room 325Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm -
Wait Wait Do Tell Me: A Look At SQL Server Wait Stats
Hurry up and wait, it happens to all of us, even SQL Server. Why is SQL Server waiting? What can we do about it? These questions will be addressed as we define what a wait really is in SQL Server and some approaches to make SQL wait less. This session, targeted at data professionals, managers, developers, and sys admins, will also explore a few of the common SQL waits and specifically what we can do about them
Room 343-344Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm -
Introduction to SQL Server Essential Concepts
When I first started learning about SQL Server, really deeply learning, there were a few “key” concepts that you hear repeated often by top speakers and SQL MVP’s. Internals, recovery models, and backups. They are interconnected. As the learning continued, it was self-evident how understanding basic data internals with pages, extents, and allocation bitmaps or database recovery models, the transaction log, and VLF’s or advanced backup options backups like stripping and piecemeal restores affected the uses of SQL Server. They affected not just SQL Server but the way you make decisions in order to determine how best to use SQL Server to support your business. This session enables you to have that core set of understanding required for advanced SQL learning.
Room 347-348Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm
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Microsoft Fabric: Ultimate Data Security for Robust Data Warehousing
This session delves into the advanced security features of Microsoft Fabric, specifically designed for data warehousing. Attendees will learn how to classify and protect sensitive data using sensitivity labels and policies in Microsoft Purview.
The session will cover the implementation of Row-Level Security (RLS) to restrict access at the row level, ensuring users only see data relevant to their roles. Additionally, it will explore Column-Level Security (CLS) to secure specific columns in datasets, providing an extra layer of protection for sensitive information.
Participants will also discover how to use data masking techniques to obfuscate sensitive data, making it unreadable to unauthorized users while maintaining usability for authorized personnel. The session will emphasize aligning data warehousing practices with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA, leveraging Microsoft Fabric’s compliance tools and features.
Join us to gain a comprehensive understanding of how to secure your data warehouse end-to-end within Microsoft Fabric.Room 340-342Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
How much SQL do you need to know as developer?
In today’s data-driven world, developers must accurately utilize SQL and database functionalities to provide effective and cost-efficient solutions. This presentation covers key database skills for developers at all levels, focusing on design, querying, and optimization.
The topics are categorized by developer levels (Jr, Sr, Ld). We will begin with fundamental topics, such as using the correct data types, and progress to advanced topics, including vectors and artificial intelligence.
We will utilize SQL Server, one of the most commonly used databases globally. By knowing how to use this well-known server, you automatically qualify for numerous projects. Though many database engines have similar functionalities, they use different terms, so everything learned in this session will apply to other database systems you encounter.
How many new technologies will remain next year is uncertain, but SQL has been essential for decades. Mastering SQL can give you a significant competitive advantage!Room 347-348Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Getting started with SQL database in Fabric
Microsoft Fabric, the unified data platform, now includes an operational database solution and it is SQL! Come learn all the fundamentals of how this solution is the same and different from other SQL deployment options. We will also show you the value of using SQL in the Fabric ecosystem including developer experiences, automation, monitoring, and integration for AI applications.
Room 325Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Indexing Internals for Developers & DBAs
What are the secrets to making your queries run faster? Why does SQL Server use an index for some queries and not for others? What makes a good index? How many indexes should I have? Have you ever asked these questions? When you want to understand an application you look at its core architecture. Underneath the covers SQL Server is just a C++ application. Together we will discuss how the application architecture of SQL Server works, and how to apply this logic to building the best indexes for your queries.
Room 343-344Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
PowerBI, DirectQuery and SQL Server. It is a good choice?
You will learn best practices, tips and tricks on how to successfully use SQL databases (OnPremise,IaaS, PaaS,SQL Managed Instance) with PowerBI on production environments.
How improve the performance, using for example, Read-Scale, HyperScale or Synapse, partitioning, ColumnStoreIndexes, Indexed views, etc..
How to monitor and diagnostic your database and find out issues with Query Data Store. These learnings are fruit of Microsoft CSS support cases, and customer field engagements.Room 323-324Wed 2:00 pm - 3:10 pm -
Everything you need to know about Data Virtualization in Azure SQL Database
Learn everything you need to know about Data Virtualization, OPENROWSET, External tables, parquet, Delta, best practices, how to access external data using Azure SQL Database, export cold data, and create your very own data tiering solution.
Room 320-321Wed 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm -
SQL Server and AI, tomorrow has arrived
Applications in need of modernization and integration with AI usually pick up an AI broker to bridge the gap. Microsoft SQL Server 2025, still in private preview, as announced interesting features to implement this bridge and help developers to get AI results in existing applications faster. In this session will you learn about these features and how they will help infuse AI in current apps.
Room 320-321Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Azure SQL Database Hyperscale elastic pools - a deep-dive
Azure SQL Database offers a very popular deployment option called elastic pools, to help ease the challenges around right-sizing and cost-optimizing resources for a group of databases. In this session, we will dive deep into the latest generation of elastic pools which leverage the Hyperscale cloud-native architecture. Starting with a quick overview of the motivation for using elastic pools, and a quick recap of the Hyperscale tech, we will use demos to show you:
- How Hyperscale elastic pools ("HSEP") implement resource sharing...
- ... while maintaining strong isolation between databases
- What are the performance and capacity limits of each HSEP
- How you can proactively control "noisy neighbor" databases in a HSEP
- How HSEP scales vertically and / or horizontally, and what the impact of such scaling is on your workloads
- How to monitor HSEP effectively using DMVs, Azure Monitor and Database Watcher
- How backups, high availability, and disaster recovery work for databases in a HSEP
- Last but not the least, how HSEP helps in cost optimization - and what you should watch out for as well to manage TCO.
To make best use of this session, some Azure SQL knowledge would help, but it's not necessary. Anyone who plans to run databases in Azure SQL should be aware of elastic pools so that they can benefit from the optimizations they provide. This session will directly help you in understanding how HSEP work and how they may be beneficial to your scenario.Room 325Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
SQL Server 2025: The Enterprise AI ready database
Come learn about the latest information for SQL Server 2025, now in preview. You will learn how to bring AI to your data with AI applications using built-in vector capabilities ground to cloud. In addition, you will learn about new enhancements for developers including JSON, RegEx, REST API, GraphQL, Change Streaming. You will also learn about all the new engine features for security, performance, and availability. You will also see how to integrate your SQL Server 2025 experience using the new SSMS21 and SSMS Copilot.
Room 343-344Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
Mastering Elastic Database Pools: Best Practices and Troubleshooting from Microsoft Support
Join us for an in-depth exploration of Elastic Database Pools, the game-changing technology that empowers developers and DBAs to efficiently manage and scale their databases. In this session, we'll delve into best practices and strategies for leveraging Elastic Database Pools to optimize your workload management and improve performance.
Drawing from real-world support cases at Microsoft, we'll demonstrate the significant impact and benefits of using Elastic Database Pools in various scenarios. Our talk will also cover essential troubleshooting techniques to identify and resolve incidents effectively.
Plus, don't miss our live demos showcasing practical examples and code in multiple programming languages. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a DBA looking to enhance your toolkit, this session is tailored for you! Gain valuable insights, practical tips.Room 325Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Securing Azure PaaS Network Communications
Many companies use one or more Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings when working with Microsoft Azure. However, these companies don't want to allow the network traffic to these PaaS services to go over the public Internet. In this session, we will learn more about why companies want to secure this network traffic and, more importantly, how to secure this traffic and what application changes need to be made to use these private connections.
Room 340-342Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
AI and SQL ground to cloud to fabric
New to AI? Come learn the fundamentals of how to get started with AI and Microsoft SQL everywhere it exists: ground to cloud to fabric. This includes SQL Server 2025, Azure SQL, and SQL database in Fabric. SQL is the perfect place to integrate data with AI because of its industry proven security, scalability, and availability. We will show GenAI capabilities like vector search, how to integrate these with your application, and Copilot experiences everywhere SQL exists including GitHub Copilot.
Room 347-348Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Data Virtualization in SQL Server 2022
PolyBase is Microsoft's primary data virtualization technology, allowing you to integrate SQL Server with a variety of external systems such as Oracle, MongoDB, Cosmos DB, Teradata, Apache Spark, and even other SQL Server instances. In this talk, we will walk through the mechanics of PolyBase, showing how we can write T-SQL queries to access data from heterogeneous sources. We will see how data virtualization in SQL Server has evolved over the years and the new capabilities you will find in SQL Server 2022. Finally, we will look at several interesting use cases for data virtualization in the modern data environment.
Room 343-344Fri 12:30 pm - 1:40 pm -
Introduction to SQL Server Essential Concepts
When I first started learning about SQL Server, really deeply learning, there were a few “key” concepts that you hear repeated often by top speakers and SQL MVP’s. Internals, recovery models, and backups. They are interconnected. As the learning continued, it was self-evident how understanding basic data internals with pages, extents, and allocation bitmaps or database recovery models, the transaction log, and VLF’s or advanced backup options backups like stripping and piecemeal restores affected the uses of SQL Server. They affected not just SQL Server but the way you make decisions in order to determine how best to use SQL Server to support your business. This session enables you to have that core set of understanding required for advanced SQL learning.
Room 347-348Fri 1:50 pm - 3:00 pm
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Azure Cosmos DB for Developers: From Basics to AI
This workshop is perfect for any developer eager to explore how to integrate Azure Cosmos DB into their applications! We’ll dive into the ins and outs of Azure Cosmos DB, helping you gain a thorough understanding of its architecture, features, and handy tools. We’ll also cover essential concepts like partitioning and data modeling for distributed NoSQL databases, making sure you feel confident in working with this powerful technology.
The workshop will include an in-depth look at all the database services offered by Azure Cosmos DB, with a primary focus on the SQL API. We will utilize the Azure Cosmos DB Emulator as much as possible, so participants may not need an Azure subscription for most of the workshop. Additionally, attendees will learn how to use the Azure Cosmos DB Data Migration Tool to migrate data from various sources into Azure Cosmos DB.
Azure Cosmos DB provides a range of AI capabilities via Azure AI Foundry. In the workshop's concluding section, participants will explore AI features and vector data options available in Azure Cosmos DB.
Participants are welcome to join the workshop with or without their computer, as there will be valuable learning opportunities regardless of whether a computer is used.Room 320-321Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
PowerShell DBA Dream dbatools Workshop
Unlock the power of automation and enhance your database management skills in this full-day PowerShell workshop designed for DBAs. This session will equip you with essential skills and streamline your daily operations and reduce manual errors through scripting and automation.
We will start with PowerShell fundamentals before moving into advanced scripting best practices tailored to the needs of SQL Server management. A key highlight of the workshop is our in-depth exploration of the **dbatools module**—a powerful, community-built toolkit that simplifies SQL Server management tasks. With over 700 cmdlets/functions it is a treasure trove of greatness (in my opinion). This mostly demo session with many real-world examples, you’ll learn how to leverage dbatools to automate tasks such as backups, restores, performance monitoring, and migrations, dramatically enhancing your operational efficiency.
Whether you’re looking to learn PowerShell and dbatools or to explore automation strategies, this workshop offers a rich blend of theoretical insights and interactive scenarios. Join me for a day of learning, collaboration, and fun that will allow you to take full control of your database operations with the combined power of PowerShell and dbatools.Room 347-348Mon 9:00 am - 5:00 pm -
Infrastructure for Data Professionals: An Introduction
It doesn’t matter if you are a Junior DBA, an accidental DBA or all the way up to a Senior DBA, the infrastructure your SQL Server environment runs on is important. Many among the DBA community came in as developers or perhaps directly into database administration roles it is equally possible that you have been out of the operations world long enough to have fallen out of the loop with what is happening. This session is intended to provide a full stack infrastructure overview so that you can talk shop with your cohorts in operations to resolve issues and maybe even be proactive. We will discuss, in an introductory fashion, hardware, network, storage, virtualization and operating system layers. Additionally, some suggestions as to where to find more information will be provided.
Room 325Wed 8:30 am - 9:40 am -
Getting started with SQL database in Fabric
Microsoft Fabric, the unified data platform, now includes an operational database solution and it is SQL! Come learn all the fundamentals of how this solution is the same and different from other SQL deployment options. We will also show you the value of using SQL in the Fabric ecosystem including developer experiences, automation, monitoring, and integration for AI applications.
Room 325Wed 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
10 Free SQL Databases: Your Playground for AI, Advanced Analytics, and Next-Gen Applications!
The Azure SQL free database offer is bigger than ever—now providing 10 free databases per subscription for life! This means unlimited opportunities to build, analyze, and innovate without worrying about costs.
In this session, you'll explore how to:
1. Unlock AI-driven insights by running ML models, anomaly detection, and intelligent recommendations directly in SQL
2.Power real-time analytics by processing and visualizing data streams for predictive forecasting and decision-making
3.Automate workflows and optimize data pipelines with SQL-based automation and event-driven processing
4.Enhance BI reporting and dashboarding with seamless integrations into Power BI and other analytics tools
5.Develop enterprise-grade applications, including AI-powered customer insights, fraud detection, financial forecasting, IoT telemetry, and marketing personalization
6.Set up multi-database environments for development, experimentation, and CI/CD pipelines—all without affecting production
Whether you're a developer, data scientist, or analytics enthusiast, this session will show you how to harness the full power of SQL for AI and analytics—with zero cost and limitless possibilities.
Join us and take your data-driven applications to the next level!Room 325Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Become a project management samurai with Azure DevOps as your katana sword
Okey, so you have taken on the responsibility as a project manager or scrum master, and you want to plan your project, the tasks and the project team capacity. Should you do it like you usually do in excel, or do you want to try a cool tool, like Azure DevOps?
Azure DevOps has a lot of cool features, not only relevant for your Azure environment. In this session we will take a look at the “Boards” feature and how you can use that for project management, project team capacity planning and project progress reporting.
Let’s dive into Azure DevOps!Room 343-344Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Hold my beer; I know how to fix this with Copilot!
Many proof-of-concept AI applications fail to reach production because industries do not find value in copilot-like applications.
Companies seek clarity and focus, not an overwhelming barrage of chat applications bombarding decision-makers with countless suggestions or summarizations.
This session will help you connect the dots in the AI puzzle using Microsoft technologies, including the new open-source database, DocumentDB. We will examine vector stores, the RAG pattern, and multi-agent frameworks and learn how to implement these technologies in applications.
By the end of this session, you will have all the practical information necessary to integrate AI features into your projects.Room 347-348Thu 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Best practices and Guidance when using Microsoft Dataverse
We'll cover best practices when developing solutions using Microsoft Dataverse. We'll cover guidance for API usage, form design, app performance, security, maintenance and more!
Room 340-342Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Unleash the Power of SQL Database in Fabric: Innovate Without Limits Using the Free Trial
Curious about SQL Database in Fabric but unsure where to start? This session is your gateway to limitless innovation—completely free. Discover how to leverage the Fabric free trial to explore serverless computing, real-time analytics, and AI-powered insights—all without cost or commitment.
We’ll walk you through hands-on scenarios, best practices, and real-world workflows that showcase the full potential of SQL Database in Fabric. Learn how to automate processes, optimize performance, and seamlessly integrate SQL with other Fabric components to drive efficiency and scale effortlessly.
Whether you're a developer, data engineer, or tech innovator, this session will give you the tools to experiment, build, and unlock new capabilities—risk-free. Don't miss this opportunity to transform your data solutions and bring your ideas to life with zero barriers, zero cost, and endless possibilities.Room 347-348Thu 12:40 pm - 1:50 pm -
Rethinking Databases: Blockchain for Security, Trust, and Transparency
In an era where data breaches, fraud, and lack of transparency plague traditional databases, blockchain emerges as a revolutionary solution for secure and trusted data management. This session explores how blockchain technology is transforming the way we store, access, and verify data—eliminating single points of failure, enhancing security, and ensuring transparency like never before.
I'll dive into the core principles of blockchain that make it a superior alternative to traditional databases, from immutability and cryptographic security to decentralized trust mechanisms. Attendees will gain insights into real-world applications across industries such as finance, healthcare, and supply chain, showcasing how blockchain is redefining data integrity and ownership.
Whether you’re a developer, business leader, or tech enthusiast, this session will equip you with the knowledge to understand why blockchain is the future of secure and transparent databases—and how your organization can leverage it for a more trusted digital ecosystem.Room 320-321Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
Introduction to Version Control, GIT, and Power BI Developer mode
This session will guide you through the basics of version control, ensuring you understand its significance for efficient Power BI project management. We will introduce you to GIT, a widely used version control system, without delving into intricate code or overly technical jargon.
In just one hour, you will gain a genuine grasp of how it all works.
Key Topics Covered:
- Demystifying Version Control: We'll explain version control in plain language, emphasizing why it's pivotal for successful Power BI projects.
- An Introduction to GIT: Get a straightforward overview of GIT, without getting bogged down in technical details. Discover why it's so popular and beneficial.
- The Power of Power BI Developer Mode: Understand how the new Power BI Developer Mode simplifies development and collaboration, without diving into intricate coding.
- Version Control in Power BI: Not all users need GIT, so understand the options for all projects and different methods available.
- Practical Tips for Success: We'll share practical insights and straightforward tips for effectively using version control in Power BI.
Suitable for any data analyst, a Power BI developer, BI enthusiast, or anyone looking to understand enterprise features.Room 325Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
SQL Server 2025: The Enterprise AI ready database
Come learn about the latest information for SQL Server 2025, now in preview. You will learn how to bring AI to your data with AI applications using built-in vector capabilities ground to cloud. In addition, you will learn about new enhancements for developers including JSON, RegEx, REST API, GraphQL, Change Streaming. You will also learn about all the new engine features for security, performance, and availability. You will also see how to integrate your SQL Server 2025 experience using the new SSMS21 and SSMS Copilot.
Room 343-344Thu 4:00 pm - 5:10 pm -
Azure SQL DB Hyperscale: The Definitive Modern Database Choice
Join us at DataCon to explore the Azure SQL Database Hyperscale. We'll discuss its architecture and use cases, highlighting benefits like larger database sizes, faster throughput, and continuous priming. Learn how these advancements boost scalability, speed, and reliability in data management. Stay ahead with the cutting-edge features of Azure SQL Database Hyperscale.
We'll dive into real-world use cases and innovations that demonstrate the power of Azure SQL in driving the next generation of databases. Discover how organizations are leveraging Hyperscale for mission-critical applications, and how vector support enhances performance for complex queries and AI workloads. Experience firsthand the transformative impact of Azure SQL Database in various industries and understand why it is the preferred choice for modern data solutions.Room 320-321Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
The Power of Semantic Layers: Ensuring Reliable and Governed BI
Developers often create excellent reports, only to be asked for data exports to Excel.
Ultimately, users want only one thing: easy access to data that helps them do their job. While Power BI reports and dashboards are powerful, they can't answer every question. Users may need to create their own reports, build Excel pivots, or extract data for other processes.
These needs must be met securely and consistently, avoiding governance bypass, duplicated calculations, or compromised security.
Enter the Semantic Layer.
The semantic layer connects Power BI and Microsoft Fabric back-end systems to end users, offering secure, governed, and user-friendly data access. Certified semantic models means that the content meets the organisation's quality standards and can be regarded as reliable, authoritative, and ready for use across the organisation.
This session will cover:
1. What is a Semantic Model?
Define the semantic layer, its components, and its role in self-service BI.
2. The Certification Process
Explore the structured, repeatable steps required to certify semantic models. This introduces the certification process map and checklist - a list of best practices a model requires to pass to be certified.
3. Deep dive into the Certification Checklist
Learn some common best practices, optimization tips, security considerations, and practical advice for building robust semantic models.
Who Should Attend?
This session is for Data Analysts, Data Engineers, and BI Developers aiming to upgrade models to meet enterprise business and self service needs.
Led by Steve Campbell, a Microsoft MVP and co-owner of a Microsoft data consultancy. Steve previously led data analytics for large-scale EMEA platform implementations.
Key Takeaways
- Understand the Role of Semantic Models.
- Learn the Certification Process and a repeatable framework for ensuring your models meet organisational standards.
- Take away practical tips for optimisation, security, and best practices.Room 340-342Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Building Your First CRUD App using Dataverse for Teams with Copilot
We'll learn how to leverage Copilot and AI to quickly turn an Excel table into a Dataverse schema, with data and a fully functional low-code app using the assistance of AI and Copilot Studio.
Microsoft Dataverse for Teams delivers a no code / low code out of the box data platform for Microsoft Teams. You get relational data storage, rich data types, enterprise-grade governance, and one-click solution deployment. Dataverse for Teams enables everyone to easily build and deploy apps. Come see what Dataverse for Teams is all about and how to get started building databased apps within Teams.Room 347-348Fri 9:00 am - 10:10 am -
Microsoft Database Docs - Learn about Contributing for your Career
Join content developers from the Microsoft Database Docs content team for an interactive discussion and call to action on modern Microsoft docs. Learn about the Docs publishing process in GitHub, and the best ways to add content and fixes to Docs that are read by the entire customer community. We'll also ask for your feedback on Docs and host Q&A. Learn what contribution to Microsoft Learn can mean for your Microsoft MVP status, your career, or your personal brand.
Room 325Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
Performance tuning for Azure Cosmos DB
Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed database service, freeing developers from database management tasks. However, as a developer, you still have important responsibilities, such as changing indexing policies, configuring connections, estimating workloads, and selecting the right throughput options. All of these tasks have a direct impact on the performance and cost of your application.
To keep your application running smoothly and fast, we'll explore the .NET/SDK settings, connection types, and indexing types. We'll also focus on selecting the right throughput options, using Query Execution Metrics and server-side programming.
Join me as we explore how to optimize your Azure Cosmos DB solutions for the best performance.Room 343-344Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am -
AI and SQL ground to cloud to fabric
New to AI? Come learn the fundamentals of how to get started with AI and Microsoft SQL everywhere it exists: ground to cloud to fabric. This includes SQL Server 2025, Azure SQL, and SQL database in Fabric. SQL is the perfect place to integrate data with AI because of its industry proven security, scalability, and availability. We will show GenAI capabilities like vector search, how to integrate these with your application, and Copilot experiences everywhere SQL exists including GitHub Copilot.
Room 347-348Fri 10:20 am - 11:30 am