• Leveling Up Your Azure Skills—Implementing Data Platform like a Pro

    There are over 200 services in Azure, which can make it overwhelming for many IT professionals. In this session, you will learn about the specifics of using Azure for data platform solutions. Starting with virtual machines and they should be configured, and then diving deeper into Platform as a Service solutions like Azure SQL Database, Managed Instance, CosmosDB, and Synapse Analytics you will learn how to make decisions about the best option for your workloads and how to integrate that with the broader Azure ecosystem. You will learn about how security with Azure Active Directory works, and how to implement it in your applications. You will also learn about additional services, like Azure Key Vault, Azure Functions, Logic Apps and Automation, which help you to bring make different components interact with each other.

    Nürburgring (Dijlezaal)
    Mon 09:00 - 17:00
    • 100 - Introductory and Overview
    • Azure SQL DB
    • Azure Container Registry
    • Azure Compute
    • Azure Synapse Analytics
    • Azure Log Analytics

  • SQL Server Tools for Query Tuning

    Query tuning within SQL Server can be a tough skill to master. The new tooling released with SQL Server 2016 and 2017 changes how you identify poorly performing queries, troubleshoot their behavior and tune the queries, all a little easier.
    This workshop teaches new techniques for tuning queries using all the new tools introduced in SQL Server 2016 and 2017. You'll be able to put this knowledge to work immediately, not only in your 2016 or better instances but also in your Azure SQL Database databases. You will be tuning your queries faster and more accurately using the new tools available.

    Silverstone (Scala)
    Mon 09:00 - 17:00
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • SQL
    • Performance Tuning
    • Execution Plans
    • Extended Events
    • Query Store
    • T-SQL
    • Team Extended Events

  • Power BI Administration and Governance training class

    In this training session we will cover everything you need to know as a Power BI administrator or Power BI responsible. We will use theory and practice to learn concepts and apply them.

    This full day course has four parts.

    Part 1 Administrating Power BI - 1,5 hours
    We will provision a Power BI environment, we will look at the main settings and figure out which of them are important and how the should be set according to best practices.

    Part 2 Power BI Premium - 1 hour
    We will setup Power BI premium and look through the administration options when it comes to dedicated capacity.

    Part 3 The Power BI On-premises Data Gateway - 1 hour
    We will investigate the role of the Enterprise Gateway, set it up, configure it and talk about how to administer it.

    Part 4 Power BI Governance - 3,5 hours
    We will look at Power BI governance and see how you can set governance strategy, create processes and roles and lastly but not least how you can monitor your Power BI environment.

    Monte Carlo (Alcazar)
    Mon 09:00 - 17:00
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Power BI
    • Administration

  • Azure Synapse SQL Pools Unleashed!

    Are you ready to unlock the massive power of Synapse SQL Pools? Do you want to see some of the features that are coming and what impact they will have on your workloads?

    Join us to learn and apply the best strategy when it comes to ingesting and consuming your data with Azure Synapse! The day will be packed with tips and tricks for your Data Warehouse from two folks who work on the largest deployments in the world!

    In the morning we will ease into Synapse and explaining all key features, from there on we will deep dive into the Polaris engine and how it changes the game. Focus of the morning will be around Dedicated SQL pools and how to get the best performance out of it. We will look at loading patterns and ways to optimize these, table distribution issues, security features, statistics handling, workload management, streaming data and indexing strategies!

    After lunch we handle the other side of our Synapse Pool environment: Serverless. We will explain how it works, and how to optimize the reading patterns. We will touch upon delta lake and how it fits in, parquet file structure, flat file differences, security features, partitioning strategies, optimized data loading with Spark and many more.

    After this day you will be able to tackle any issues you face to build a performant, cost efficient and dynamic data warehouse with Azure Synapse SQL Pools.

    Spa-Francorchamps (Auditorium)
    Mon 09:00 - 17:00
    • 300 - Experienced
    • Azure Synapse Analytics
    • SQL Pools
    • Azure SQL Data Warehouse

  • The latest data science workflow in Azure

    Data science is a rapidly evolving skill set and keeping up to date with best practices for the workflow can be tough. In this one day course, we get hands-on with the latest tools to help us build reproducible, scalable models quickly and effectively.

    Starting with an overview of Azure ML Services and the latest advancements like R Support, we'll connect to common data sources, build our feature engineering pipelines, train models, and then deploy them.

    Throughout all of this Azure ML Services will be the foundation for our best practices workflow.

    Bring your laptop and your Python or R skills for a day of practical learning that you can implement immediately.

    Suzuka (Herten Aas)
    Mon 09:00 - 17:00
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • R
    • DataOps
    • AI
    • Data Science
    • Azure Machine Learning

  • Data Goblin in-a-Day: Hands-On Power BI Report Design & User Co-Creation

    Due to the interactive nature of the session, participation is limited to 12 attendees. It is recommended participants have a basic technical grasp of Power BI and are comfortable doing groupwork with others.

    Feel free to also look at the visual agenda, available below:
    https://bit.ly/3B4vLPb

    --------------------------------------
    ABSTRACT:
    --------------------------------------

    A successful reporting project is about more than following and ticking boxes next to a requirements list. To design and launch a successful Power BI report, there must be sufficient understanding of the business users, their needs and how they use and think about the data. This is best done by co-creation - working with the users to design something that gets closer to the target. In practice, however, this is easier said than done.

    The objective of this session is to learn about user engagement and report design practices both from prepared content and each other. Attendees will work in groups to create and present a business case proposal and Power BI report design using sample data and user co-creation.

    This session will thus be an interactive, full-day workshop exploring how to engage with users and work hands-on with Power BI report design best practices. Attendees will be presented with a business case and sample data, then work in groups to engage with fictional user personas during interactive, role-played workshops. During the session, attendees will have to overcome typical reporting project challenges such as data availability, quality, unclear/changing requirements, technical or analytical challenges, etc. To overcome these challenges, attendees will have to work together and think outside the box, and engage with users to be able to design an effective report. At the end of the session, attendees will present the proposed solutions and compare to how they would have done it if they had only followed the requirements list.

    The format of the session will be styled similar to a tabletop roleplaying game (tRPG). Attendees will engage with a game master (GM), who will roleplay different stakeholders and users (yes there will be weird voices and accents), and narrate the events surrounding the fictional reporting project, using dice to introduce random obstacles and challenges that attendees will have to solve to succeed.

    PART 1: INTRODUCTION (1 H.)
    The first part of the session serves as an introduction for the rest of the day. We will look at the materials for the mock business case, and also experience an introduction to a helpful principle for data design and best practices.

    PART 2: VACUUM DESIGN PROPOSAL (0.5 H.)
    The second part involves some solo work. Using the requirements and provided materials for the business case, we sketch a proposed report solution from existing templates. The objective is to propose an effective design based on the information and scope provided.

    PART 3: CO-CREATION WORKSHOPS (5.5 H.)
    In user co-creation workshops, groups engage with users role-played by the organizer. The objective is to learn who the users are and what they do, in the context of the data. This is how they define the report, and together with the users, the design and functionality.

    PART 4: DESIGN SHOWCASE (1 H.)
    In the final part of the day, groups will present their designs and explain how user feedback was incorporated. We will discuss how the designs and proposals changed before vs. after engaging with users.

    Finally, we will recap the key take-aways from the session.
    --------------------------------------
    IMPORTANT INFO BELOW:
    --------------------------------------
    Are you submitting registration for this precon? If so, you can fill out this form, it will help us prepare!

    https://forms.office.com/r/NQm4sdRQmm

    Monza (Verloren Zoon)
    Mon 09:00 - 17:00
    • 300 - Experienced
    • Power BI
    • Data Analysis
    • Data Visualisation
    • Best Practices
    • Team Work

  • The Synapse Keynote

    The ultimate (or not) Azure Synapse Analytics keynote, showing the latest announcements and connecting the dots.
    Azure Synapse Analytics is a limitless analytics service that brings together data integration, enterprise data warehousing, and big data analytics. It gives you the freedom to query data on your terms, using either serverless or dedicated resources—at scale. Azure Synapse brings these worlds together with a unified experience to ingest, explore, prepare, manage, and serve data for immediate BI and machine learning needs.

    Spa-Francorchamps (Auditorium)
    Tue 09:00 - 09:30
    • 300 - Experienced
    • Azure Synapse Analytics

  • Protecting your data against unauthorised reads on SQL Server

    The need to protect data from being read by unauthorized people has always been there. In the last years, this need has even increased. One of the first things that comes into mind is e.g. GPDR but there are many other cases why you need to protect your data (hacking, phishing, etc.). This session will show several possibilities going from the very basics to the more advanced options.

    Nürburgring (Dijlezaal)
    Tue 09:45 - 10:45
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • SQL
    • Security
    • GDPR

  • Learn to Effectively Use Extended Events

    Too many people have looked at Extended Events, seen what looks like a horrible interface, heard about the XML, and have subsequently run away. This session is here to show you how to effectively use Extended Events to monitor your query performance, and more, in an efficient and useful way. The interface for Extended Events isn't bad, just grossly misunderstood. After you attend this session, you'll be able to easily do things that you've never been able to do with Trace. You need a more efficient query metrics tool, and it's waiting for you in Extended Events.

    Silverstone (Scala)
    Tue 09:45 - 10:45
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • SQL
    • Performance Tuning
    • Extended Events
    • SQL Server

  • Introduction to Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool Distribution and Indexing

    Data Architects, let's tackle one of the most common performance pitfalls that people encounter with Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools! We'll work from the ground up so anyone new to Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools will understand the different data distribution methods and index options. Then we'll go though recommendations on when you should pick the best options to increase your workload performance and possibly save you money which will make you look like a hero!

    Monte Carlo (Alcazar)
    Tue 09:45 - 10:45
    • 100 - Introductory and Overview
    • Azure Synapse Analytics
    • Azure SQL Data Warehouse

  • Using Excel as a reporting and analysis tool for Power BI data

    Once you have built a Power BI dataset there are several options for creating reports that use the data in it: classic Power BI reports, paginated reports and Excel. This session is all about the third option, Excel. You’ll learn how to connect Excel to a Power BI dataset and use PivotTables, Excel cube functions and the new Excel data types to build reports. You’ll also find out how to create Excel reports that can be viewed in the browser and not just on your desktop.

    Spa-Francorchamps (Auditorium)
    Tue 09:45 - 10:45
    • 100 - Introductory and Overview
    • Power BI

  • Using machine learning in trading and finance with Python on Azure cloud

    Ever wondered how to make money while you sleep? Well I do. In this session, I will
    walk you through my learning experience of the last 18 months on how you can use Python, Azure, machine learning and a whole lot of data crunching as input for your investing or trading decisions. Spoiler alert: I did not take the deep dive yet ...

    Topics covered:
    - Review concepts of quantitative trading strategies
    - Using Power BI and Jupyter notebooks for trading strategies
    - Exploring Python libraries in an end-to-end ML for trading (ML4T) workflow
    - How to leverage the Azure cloud for algorithmic/quantitative trading.

    Suzuka (Herten Aas)
    Tue 09:45 - 10:45
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Power BI
    • Python
    • Cloud
    • Data Visualisation
    • AI
    • Data Science
    • Machine Learning
    • Data Lake
    • Notebooks
    • Azure Cosmos DB

  • Agile SQL Development

    You're familiar with SQL Development and have a way of doing things, because that is how it has always been. Sure, sometimes code on a server seems to disappear, and your (monthly, bi-monthly?) big deployments are always a 3-day task followed by 7 days of praying nothing goes wrong, but that's life! You've heard of this whole "agile" hype, maybe you're even working in sprints. It doesn't seem to fit your daily job though, and just makes life more complicated.

    If you recognize part (or all) of this, this session is for you! We will talk about how to transform the way of working for your team and yourself by transitioning from a direct approach to agile, improving with every step along the way! Our aim is to soothe the pain points mentioned above, without suddenly overthrowing all the fundamentals about SQL development.

    During this session we will cover working in Sprints, working in Database Projects, and introduce Source Control.

    Marina Bay Street (Begijnenzolder)
    Tue 09:45 - 10:45
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Database Development

  • DBA Red Team vs DEV Blue Team or "How to communicate with your Entity Framework developers."

    Entity Framework (EF) has been around for some time, and what never seems to amaze me is the way in which developers and DBA's still don't seem to agree on whether EF is a good thing or not.

    In this session:
    I will try to explain how EF actually works so you as a DBA understand why developers love working with EF. What is "Code First"? What is "Database First"? Is their a middleground to be found?
    I will also try to explain how you can work WITH your developers and get EF implemented and still have performance up to the high standards that you as DBA are used to.

    Actually I will try to approach this from both the DBA as the Developer's point of view, A RED Team vs BLUE Team of Entity Framework if you will.

    Monza (Verloren Zoon)
    Tue 09:45 - 10:45
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • SQL
    • SQL Server

  • Security techniques for cross database access

    Separation of data from procedures, functions and views is a common approach to protect data. If you deal with microservice architecutres you will quite often separate the "master data" from service data but need to have access to it.
    What is the best practice to grant access to these data?

    I will show you three common scenarios for discussion:
    - Synonyms for remote data
    - signed procedures
    - TRUSTWORTHY options to access data

    What do you think? What is the best approach to deal with these requirements?
    In this session you learn the pro and the cons of each solution.

    Nürburgring (Dijlezaal)
    Tue 11:00 - 12:00
    • 300 - Experienced
    • SQL
    • Security
    • T-SQL
    • SQL Server

  • Continuous Integration with Local Agents and Azure DevOps

    One of the fundamental tools for modern DevOps software development is continuous Integration (CI). This process provides an automated independent validation and verification of your code, with quick feedback for developers that are under pressure to write higher quality software at a rapid pace. This session examines how Azure DevOps or TFS can be used to manage this process and run a database CI process inside of your data center, on your own instances.

    Silverstone (Scala)
    Tue 11:00 - 12:00
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • DevOps
    • SQL Server

  • A deep dive into Azure Synapse Analytics

    Based on the material of Analytics in a Day. I'll explain what it is, what you can use it for, and how it can improve your way of dealing with large amounts of data. In this session we'll focus on the Synapse Serverless and Synapse Spark features and the integration with PowerBI. A real live demo will also be provided

    Monte Carlo (Alcazar)
    Tue 11:00 - 12:00
    • 200 - Intermediate

  • Calculation groups in Power BI

    DAX allows you to write powerful measures in Power BI. But sometimes you get the feeling that part of these measures are merely an advanced copy-paste from a previous measure.
    Calculation groups allow you to easily create, manage and use similar measures in Power BI.
    This session illustrates what calculation groups can be used for and how to create them in Power BI Desktop and the Tabular Editor.

    Spa-Francorchamps (Auditorium)
    Tue 11:00 - 12:00
    • 300 - Experienced
    • Power BI
    • Azure Analysis Services
    • DAX

  • Learn how to use Deep Learning to make real-time predictions of your device location.

    In this session we will explain how to deploy a Deep Learning model and use it to predict real-time the location of a device. Kafka will be used to ingest data from a device and to collect real-time distance data from cellphone towers.
    We’ll explore two possible ways to use Kafka services in Azure either via Docker containers or leveraging the Kafka endpoints within Azure Event hubs.
    We will show-case how to use Scala for building an event processing pipeline that prepares data for both training and prediction by the model, and how to deploy the model in production for real-time inference.

    Key technologies used are: Azure Docker Hub, Azure Event Hubs, Azure SQL DB, Jupyter Notebooks using Python.

    Suzuka (Herten Aas)
    Tue 11:00 - 12:00
    • 400 - Advanced/Expert
    • SQL
    • Python
    • IoT
    • Cloud
    • Geospatial
    • AI
    • Big Data
    • Docker
    • Stream Analytics
    • Containers
    • Real-Time Data
    • Deep Learning

  • How to be an inclusive leader in TECH

    The new era of leadership is asking for inclusive leaders, who combine traditionally considered feminine and masculine behavioural styles. People working in TECH come from all kind of educational, cultural and religious backgrounds. Inclusive leader makes sure everyone feels heard, their contributions are valued and successes celebrated.

    Marina Bay Street (Begijnenzolder)
    Tue 11:00 - 12:00
    • 100 - Introductory and Overview

  • How to setup your testing environment, the DevOps way

    During the session I will present how I use tools like Packer, Terraform and PowerShell to spin up a test environment for SQL Server.
    dbatools PowerShell module will be doing the heavy-lifting to setup and configure the SQL Server instances/clusters

    Monza (Verloren Zoon)
    Tue 11:00 - 12:00
    • 300 - Experienced

  • Azure SQL Database - A true story journey from migration, through synchronization and beyond.

    You will be challenged with a case study to design a solution using Azure SQL Database capabilities.
    At the end of this session, you will better understand the possibilities to migrate on-premises databases to Azure SQL Database. You will learn how to synchronize data across different environments and get more insights on how to troubleshoot issues in Azure SQL Database.
    This is a hands-on, open discussions and team work kind of session (not a traditional slideshow).
    Attendees should already have basic knowledge of Azure SQL Database.

    Nürburgring (Dijlezaal)
    Tue 13:00 - 14:00
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Azure SQL DB
    • Migration

  • Five stages of grief - internals of a hash spill

    You know the Hash Match operator. You know it requires a lot of memory. And you also know that it sometimes needs more memory than it has, in which case it spills to tempdb and is slow.
    But do you know EXACTLY what happens under the cover in the case of a hash spill? Or does you knowledge stop at "it gets slow"?
    Unless you work for Microsoft on the SQL Server engineering team, there really is no need to know the internals of a hash spill. But that doesn't mean you can't be curious! Would you like to waste some time to learn about dynamic role reversal, grace hash join, bail-out, bit-vector filtering, and more, then join this sessions!

    Silverstone (Scala)
    Tue 13:00 - 14:00
    • 9001 - Over Nine Thousand!
    • Execution Plans
    • Internals

  • Synapse vs Databricks. which road to take?

    To enable scalable data engineering in the Modern Data Platform on Azure, we could use Synapse and/or Databricks, SQL & Spark and data science.
    In this session, we will clarify how Azure Synapse compares with Databricks and share for which use-case Synapse or Databricks is a better choice. This session includes a demo which demonstrates the similarities or differences between the tools.

    Monte Carlo (Alcazar)
    Tue 13:00 - 14:00
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Azure Databricks
    • Azure Synapse Analytics

  • Managing Power BI workspaces

    Workspaces allow Power BI users to collect together datasets, reports, dashboards, dataflows and other Power BI objects and control access. As such the workspace is a central component in any Power BI deployment strategy. What is the best way to manage workspaces? The answer to that question (like so many others) is that it depends. In this session we will cover the most common ways to manage Power BI workspaces and try to uncover what method works best for different scenarios. We will try to touch on the whole lifecycle of the workspace from creation until deletion.

    We will cover scenarios ranging everyone can create workspaces and manage them to automated workspace creation via a workflow which are managed by administrators.

    What we will cover:

    • Different ways to create workspaces
    o Manual
     User can create workspaces
     Only certain users/groups can create workspaces
    o Automatic
     Simple workflow without approval
     Complex workflow with multiple approvals
    • Managing workspaces
    o Manual
     User manages their own workspaces
     Admins manage all workspaces
     Hybrid of the above
    o (Semi) Automatic
     Using APIs to manage certain aspect of workspaces
    such as monitoring and deletion
    • How workspace creation and management fits into the most
    common content Lifecycle Management methods for Power
    BI

    The audience will take away knowledge of different methods to manage workspaces and ideas on how to automate some aspects of it.

    Spa-Francorchamps (Auditorium)
    Tue 13:00 - 14:00
    • 300 - Experienced
    • Power BI

  • Machine Learning in Azure Synapse

    There is a lot of content available on Synapse for Data Engineering, but what about Machine Learning? In this session we will look at how to integrate a SparkML model in Synapse.

    Suzuka (Herten Aas)
    Tue 13:00 - 14:00
    • 100 - Introductory and Overview
    • Machine Learning
    • Azure Synapse Analytics

  • Fast Forward your Career by using the Community

    Getting involved in the Data Platform community can be beneficial for your career, both short-term as long-term. Not everyone has the desire to jump on a stage and start speaking for an audience, but luckily you don't need to! There are many options available to build your personal brand out there. In this session, we'll go over these options and see how they can have a great impact on your profession live!

    Marina Bay Street (Begijnenzolder)
    Tue 13:00 - 14:00
    • 100 - Introductory and Overview
    • Professional Development

  • A multi-tenant smart city data platform

    An in-depth look at a modern smart city data platform used by multiple cities in Belgium. How is scaling handled? what about data harmonisation? Onboarding of new cities? ...?

    Monza (Verloren Zoon)
    Tue 13:00 - 14:00
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Data Architecture
    • Data Modelling

  • Choosing the Right Data Store--An Overview of Azure Data Platform Choices

    Azure offers many options for data platform services, and it can be confusing to choose the right platform for you application. In this session you will learn about all of the different Azure SQL and non-SQL data offerings and how they fit into you data ecosystem.

    Nürburgring (Dijlezaal)
    Tue 14:15 - 15:15
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Azure SQL DB
    • Managed Instances
    • Azure Synapse Analytics
    • Azure Cosmos DB

  • Data Modeling and Partitioning in Azure Cosmos DB

    For many newcomers to Cosmos DB, the learning process starts with data modeling and partitioning. How should you structure your model? When should you combine multiple entity types in a single container? Should you de-normalize your entities? What’s the best partition key for your data?

    In this session, we discuss the key strategies for modeling and partitioning data effectively in Cosmos DB. Using a real-world NoSQL example based on the AdventureWorks relational database, we explore key Cosmos DB concepts—request units (RUs), partitioning, and data modeling—and how their understanding guides the path to a data model that yields the best performance and scalability. Attend this session, and acquire the critical skills you’ll need to design the optimal database for Cosmos DB.

    Silverstone (Scala)
    Tue 14:15 - 15:15
    • 200 - Intermediate

  • Building the Foundations of an Intelligent, Event-Driven Data Platform at EFSA

    EFSA is the European agency providing independent scientific advice on existing and emerging risks across the entire food chain. On 27/03/2021 a new EU regulation (EU 2019/1381) has been enacted, requiring EFSA to significantly increase the transparency of its risk assessment processes towards all citizens.

    To comply with this new regulation, delaware has been supporting EFSA in undergoing a large Digital Transformation program. We have been designing and rolling-out a modern data platform running on Azure and powered by Databricks. This platform acts as a central control tower brokering data between a variety of applications. It is built around modularity principles, making it adaptable and versatile while keeping the overall ecosystem aligned w.r.t. changing processes and data models. At the heart of the platform lie two important patterns:

    1. An Event Driven Architecture (EDA): enabling an extremely loosely coupled system landscape. By centrally brokering events near real-time, consumer applications can react immediately to events from producer applications as they occur. Event producers are decoupled from consumers via a publisher/subscribe mechanism.

    2. A central data store built around a lakehouse architecture. The lakehouse collects, organizes and serves data across all stages of the data processing cycle, all data types and all data volumes. Events streams from the EDA layer feed into the store as curated data blocks and are complemented by other sources. This store in turn feeds into APIs, reporting and applications, including the new Open EFSA portal: a public website developed by delaware hosting all relevant scientific data, updated in near real-time.

    At delaware we are very excited about this project and proud of what we have achieved with EFSA so far.

    Monte Carlo (Alcazar)
    Tue 14:15 - 15:15
    • 400 - Advanced/Expert
    • Azure Databricks
    • Azure Data Factory
    • Azure Data Lake

  • My Top 10 Power BI Tips, Tricks and Resources

    Want to learn some excellent Power BI Tips and Tricks to make your Power BI reports sleek? In this session, I will talk about some of my favourite Power BI Tips and tricks assembled working with different clients and open data projects. The session will include some simple tricks like visual settings to advanced functionalities like commentary.

    Spa-Francorchamps (Auditorium)
    Tue 14:15 - 15:15
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Power BI
    • Data Visualisation

  • Learn how to train high accuracy machine learning models using automated machine learning

    Intelligent experiences powered by AI can seem like magic to users. Developing them, however, is cumbersome involving a series of sequential and interconnected decisions along the way that are pretty time consuming. What if there was an automated service that identifies the best machine learning pipelines for a given problem/data? Automated machine learning does exactly that! Learn how to quickly and efficiently build high accuracy ml models for classification, regression and forecasting scenarios using code and code-free pathways.

    Suzuka (Herten Aas)
    Tue 14:15 - 15:15
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • AI
    • Automation
    • Azure Machine Learning
    • Machine Learning

  • The Audience Conductor - Using Senses and Emotions to Improve Your Presentations

    Technical presentations - deep knowledge, good content and a slick slide deck should do it, right? What if I add in storytelling elements to tie the whole thing together? Those are indeed the ingredients needed for a good presentation, but there is something more. Something that very few technical presenters consider. Something ephemeral, something hard to grasp. That something is the glue that binds a great presentation together. I'm talking about emotional investment, and in essence - how to conduct your audience like an orchestra.

    By choosing the story and how that story is delivered, we can influence the emotional state of our audience. By engaging multiple senses and attaching emotions to a story, we can make the entire presentation much more memorable. This session is a bit of an emotional roller coaster as I show you how to create both highs and lows by choosing what story I tell and how I tell it. Come spend an hour learning skills you didn't think were part of the technical presenter's toolbox - but turned out to be essential to make your point stick.

    Marina Bay Street (Begijnenzolder)
    Tue 14:15 - 15:15
    • 400 - Advanced/Expert
    • Soft Skills

  • Tracking Changes & Dependencies with Easy Source Control for Power BI Desktop

    Introducing Action BI Toolkit, a powerful collection of free utilities including a convenient, easy to use external tool and a powerful command line utility that bring source control for both your reports and your model, finally(!), to Power BI Desktop.

    1) ActionBI-tools – a thorough how-to action packed demo featuring a new free community External Tool that allows you to check in your changes to your Power BI report (pbix file) as you work in Power BI Desktop, without having to break your workflow. Work seamlessly tracking changes with both your model and report in the same file. Or, just check-in your report if you are working on a ‘thin report’ that’s connected to your analysis services instance, a local Power BI file or Power BI Premium.

    Together with VS Code or your source control tool of choice, learn to easily browse previous version of your M-code or DAX measures. Want to push it a little further, use ActionBI-tools to track your model and report dependencies, export snapshots of data.

    2) Pbi-tools – see how to use a powerful command line utility for enterprise-grade multi-developer DevOps scenario using only Power BI Desktop. Merge changes in your pbix file, and programmatically generate a new pbix as your changes work through your DevOps pipeline. Generate deployable pbix files directly from source control without having to hold on to large binary files in your source control.

    Monza (Verloren Zoon)
    Tue 14:15 - 15:15
    • 300 - Experienced
    • Power BI
    • DevOps

  • Azure-d Availability: SQL Server HA In and To the Cloud

    Has your manager come to you and said "I expect the SQL Server machines to have zero downtime?" Have you been told to make your environment "Always On" without any guidance (or budget) as to how to do that or what that means? Are you facing pressure to have data in Azure as well? Help is here! This session will walk you through the high availability options in on-premises SQL Server, the high availability options in Azure SQL Database and Managed Instances, and how some or all of those can be combined to enable you to achieve the ambitious goals of your management. Beyond the academic knowledge, we'll discuss frequently seen scenarios from the field covering exactly how your on-premises environments and Azure services can work together to keep your phone quiet at night.

    Nürburgring (Dijlezaal)
    Tue 15:30 - 16:30
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • SQL
    • Cloud
    • Data Architecture
    • Azure SQL DB

  • Transitioning from performance tuning SQL Server on premises to Azure PaaS

    Transitioning from performance tuning SQL Server on premises to Azure PaaS

    Silverstone (Scala)
    Tue 15:30 - 16:30
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • SQL
    • Azure SQL DB
    • SQL Server

  • Building trust in your data. Why data governance is the key to success.

    Data governance is seen as boring and something you don't really need. But it is in fact the key to success for your data platform. As the amount of data sources, as well as the size of the data from the various sources increases - how can your users know what data is available? Or where to find it and what state it is in? When your users trust the data you deliver, they will use what you develop.
    Another aspect to that trust is personal identifiable information - can citizens trust that you keep their data safe and respect their privacy?
    This session will show you how to establish both kinds of trust, using Azure native tooling as well as third-party tools. But most importantly - tips on methodology, routines and people!

    Monte Carlo (Alcazar)
    Tue 15:30 - 16:30
    • 300 - Experienced
    • Data Architecture
    • Data Governance

  • Lessons learned from 5 years of Power BI implementations

    Power BI has come a long way since it has been on the market for over 5 years. In that time we have seem Power BI grow from self service to full blown enterprise BI platform. In this session we will share the most important lessons learned over that time to be successful and avoid pitfalls for example with self service vs enterprise, modelling, performance, security, data lakes, COE and exec sponsorship.

    Spa-Francorchamps (Auditorium)
    Tue 15:30 - 16:30
    • 200 - Intermediate

  • Build and deploy PyTorch models with Azure Machine Learning

    Take a deep look into Azure Machine Learning, a cloud service that helps you build, train, deploy, and manage models. Walk through the data science process and then have some fun creating a ML recognition model based on the Simpsons cartoon with PyTorch. You'll leave this session with a better grasp of the technological components of Azure Machine Learning services.

    Suzuka (Herten Aas)
    Tue 15:30 - 16:30
    • 200 - Intermediate

  • How Not To Drown: Improving Data Literacy in your Organization

    Data literacy is fundamental for an effective organization and is a keystone for successful data & analytics projects. It is clear, however, that data literacy is a challenge area in many businesses and society as a whole. A 2018 survey of business decision-makers found only 24% were “confident in their ability to read, work with, analyze and argue with data” [1], a finding recapitulated in the lay public [2] and demonstrated plainly during the global COVID-19 pandemic [3].

    To traverse these rapids, we are in need of more than tools, but a wide knowledge of how they are used and the data concepts behind them. In this talk, I use a hypothetical business case to:

    I. Illustrate the concept of data literacy and the threat poor data literacy poses to an organization.

    II. Explore possible reasons why average data literacy is low and what we could do about it.

    III. Define practices and report design techniques to improve data literacy, such as points-of-engagement, data dictionaries, annotations, and more.

    Without data literacy, we will fail to navigate the waters of information that are ever-rising; we risk not only falling overboard, but even drowning. However instilling data in organizational values, engaging people with and about information in the right ways, and implementing accessible design practices can not only keep us afloat, but propel us onward to brave new worlds of effectiveness and value.

    [1] How to Drive Data Literacy in the Enterprise (2018)
    [2] Borner, K. et al. (2016) Investigating aspects of data visualization literacy using 20 information visualizations and 273 science museum visitors. Information Visualization 15(3) 198-213.
    [3] Advancing Data Literacy in the Post-Pandemic World (2021)

    Marina Bay Street (Begijnenzolder)
    Tue 15:30 - 16:30
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Power BI
    • Data Governance
    • Data Analysis
    • Data Visualisation
    • Automation
    • DAX
    • Power Platform
    • Explainability
    • Statistics
    • Diversity & Inclusion

  • Implementing Change Data Capture for your Master Data Sources through ADF

    CDC or Change Data Capture is an important and necessary technique in the world of data warehouses. In any DWH solution, for the master data sources, we need to capture the change and historize the data in the correct way. Having a common module or automating this CDC will be a value add for any business looking to implement DWH.

    Monza (Verloren Zoon)
    Tue 15:30 - 16:30
    • 300 - Experienced
    • SQL
    • Azure Data Factory
    • Azure Synapse Analytics
    • Azure SQL Data Warehouse

  • Infrastructure as Code to an Azure Data Platform Architecture

    Infrastructure as code is *the* way to deploy Azure services - right? But under looming deadlines and time crunches it can feel way faster to use the tried and tested method of going to the portal and creating resources manually. In the back of your head, you know there must be a faster, better way of managing resources - but how do you make the jump?
    Without having a developer background it can be difficult to know where to even start with infrastructure as code. Especially if you are working with a team of multiple people managing and operating Azure resources - this requires a full cultural change!

    In this session we will go through the concepts that you need to grasp in order to get started with infrastructure as code for Azure. We will look at how the process for managing resources in Azure changes compared to the way we've previously done it, and finally we will explore a complete workflow of deploying your Azure data platform architecture as code using Terraform and how to work on that code with your team.

    Nürburgring (Dijlezaal)
    Tue 16:45 - 17:45
    • 300 - Experienced
    • DevOps
    • Lambda Architecture
    • Azure SQL DB
    • Azure Data Lake
    • HashiCorp Terraform

  • Dynamic Search Conditions

    A common requirement in database applications is that users want a function to search a set of data from a large set of possible search conditions. The challenge is to implement such searches in a way that is both maintainable and efficient in terms of performance. This session looks at the two main techniques to implement such searches and highlights their strengths and limitations.

    Silverstone (Scala)
    Tue 16:45 - 17:45
    • 300 - Experienced
    • SQL
    • Execution Plans
    • Database Development
    • T-SQL
    • Dynamic SQL
    • SQL Server

  • Building The Next Delta Lakehouse

    We've been building data lakes for years, and we've seen how the Delta lake file format brought stability & governance to the data lake, but with the Databricks Delta Engine, it's grown into an analytics powerhouse.

    This session dives into those new features, showing how data engineering has been transformed and simplified. We'll see how to apply new technologies to old techniques, how best to get your data to your users and work through how to apply delta to your own lake-based scenarios.

    Monte Carlo (Alcazar)
    Tue 16:45 - 17:45
    • 300 - Experienced
    • Python
    • Azure Databricks
    • Big Data
    • Data Engineering

  • Power BI Quiz

    The Power BI Quiz show is your chance to prove and test your knowledge on Power BI and maybe win the grand prize! Or be the lucky winner of the raffle prize(s).

    It’s fun and you may actually get some learning out of it 😁

    Spa-Francorchamps (Auditorium)
    Tue 16:45 - 17:45
    • 100 - Introductory and Overview
    • Power BI

  • Don't trust your models, explain them!

    More companies are using machine learning to improve their products and services. This is great, as we can all see the benefits of this. The big question is, however, can you trust these models? We’ve already seen some examples of failing machine learning models.
    In this talk I’ll show you how to break open the black box of machine learning and get an interpretation of what machine learning models are doing. We’ll cover the following topics:

    * Using explainers to uncover the structure of your model
    * How to debug your model using explainers
    * How to use explainers in production to help your users

    By the end of the session you’ve learned what explainers are, how to use them, and what tools you can use to make them.

    Suzuka (Herten Aas)
    Tue 16:45 - 17:45
    • 300 - Experienced
    • AI
    • Explainability

  • Let's have a meeting on meetings!

    In which I'll give you tips, tricks and perspectives on how to participate in meetings to better meet the meeting-objectives. To improve the gathering of information in your gatherings. To assemble an agenda of your assembly. To conventiently convene your plans for and in your convention. To get together to get your get-together together. So, prepare for practical particulars on perfecting the appointments in your profession.

    Marina Bay Street (Begijnenzolder)
    Tue 16:45 - 17:45
    • 100 - Introductory and Overview
    • Soft Skills

  • Automating Power BI deployments: a walk in the park.

    Ever thought about expanding your Power BI development workflow to different environments and no clue which approach to follow? Perhaps you are already using different environments but you are struggling with parameters, refresh schedules etc. ?
    In this talk we shall discuss the abovementioned issues, provide you with some possible solutions and empower you with the knowledge to implement these for your own use cases.

    As there are a good number of ways to deploy your Power BI art pieces manually as well as automated, this session has the purpose of instructing participants in some of the more prevalent ones to overcome this tedious task.
    Participants will experience a deep-dive in three different methods:

     Power BI Premium and deployment pipelines
     Azure DevOps and Power BI Actions
     Azure DevOps and Powershell

    Session participants do not necessarily require any experience in Azure Devops, nor PowerShell.

    Monza (Verloren Zoon)
    Tue 16:45 - 17:45
    • 200 - Intermediate
    • Power BI
    • DevOps
    • Powershell
    • CI/CD
    • REST APIs
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