Brian McKeiver
Microsoft Azure MVP; Co-Owner at BizStream
Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States
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Brian McKeiver is Co-Owner at BizStream, digital agency in Allendale, MI. At BizStream he is a solution architect, visionary, Microsoft Azure MVP, Kentico Xperience MVP, and Kontent.ai MVP. He has over 20 years of experience leading his agency of more than 35 employees, about a hundred clients spread out across North America, and one heck of an interesting story of how it all started from a two-person team. In addition to his expertise in web development, cloud, integration, and digital marketing, Brian is active with the tech community via his blog at Mcbeev.com.
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Semantic Kernel (w/ Azure Open AI) Made Dead Simple
Microsoft's Semantic Kernel SDK is a tool for software developers to use to create applications which understand and interpret human language more effectively. However, it initially presents a steep learning curve. The overall architecture and multifaceted components can be overwhelming, often leaving developers unsure about where to start. This session confronts this problem head-on. Join the session to demystify the core components of the Semantic Kernel SDK.
The talk will strip away the complexities, presenting each element in a simplified manner. Through practical demonstrations and examples, we'll explore how Semantic Kernel functions, focusing on how its features can be harnessed effectively in your applications. We'll also explore its integration with Azure Open AI services, demonstrating how these resources work together.
We'll walk through setup processes, basic operations, and troubleshooting common issues. This approach is designed to instill confidence and competence in utilizing the SDK, encouraging developers to explore its full potential.
Optimize Your .Net Azure App Services
Azure App Services are basically the de facto standard as the best possible way to deploy and host a .Net application, period. You can argue with me until you are blue in the face about other hosting methods or platforms, but you would still be wrong.
However, utilizing an Azure App Service as your hosting method is not the same as utilizing standard IIS, especially when it comes to optimization. During the session we will deploy a .Net 6 MVC Core application to Azure, determine an initial baseline for performance, and then walk through how to configure various properties and server-side configurations that make that site blazing fast.
Expect to leave my session having learned a few tips and tricks on how to spot performance issues, understand the nuances of the properties and settings available to you, and ultimately optimize your Azure App Service for speed in the real world.
Oh, and if you think you have something better, bring your suggestion or argument to the session, and challenge me on it. I love a good debate.
Navigating Tools for Building AI Agents: A .NET Developer’s Guide
Curious about building your own AI-powered assistants and AI Agents, but not sure where to start? Join me for a deep dive into Microsoft's options for building AI services in your apps. We will review which approach in Azure AI Foundry, AI Agent Services, Semantic Kernel, Copilot Studio, and others, fits the best for various scenarios.
The talk aims to strip away complexities and simplify the learning curve of choosing the right tool for you. We’ll focus on practical demonstrations, including quickly deploying a model, building AI agents, and showing how options for code orchestration functions. We'll also explore integration with Azure OpenAI services, highlighting how these resources work together.
MACH based Website Development in Minutes
In today's digital landscape, MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless) architecture is revolutionizing the way websites are developed and managed. The MACH mission is to encourage enterprises to switch from traditional single-vendor application suites to a more composable, best-of-breed architecture.
This session will guide you through the process of building scalable, composable, and highly customizable websites using MACH principles. We’ll use Azure to get it to the cloud, Github to automate deployments, and make it editable with a quick Headless CMS integration.
In the process, we will create a new website with a few simple elements that is also part of a larger organization (possibly news articles, blog posts, and/or featured content). All of this to happen with a serverless API-first approach, modern tech stack, and easy deployment path to the cloud.
Configurable cloud-native applications with .NET Aspire
Building apps for the cloud has always been hard. Developers are typically pulled away from writing their business logic and what matters most to deal with the complexity of the cloud.
To help simplify cloud app complexity, Microsoft has introduced .NET Aspire. It includes a curated set of components that make sense to use in your C# projects.
.NET Aspire makes it easy to discover, acquire, and configure essential dependencies for cloud-native apps from the very beginning of your project.
Join me to walk through the set-up and usage of this new, powerful tool that can make any .NET developer more efficient in delivering cloud-native applications.
High Availability with Azure PaaS for Websites
Let's review how to accomplish highly available architecture for modern websites in Azure. We will see how to leverage PaaS based resources like Azure Front Door, Azure App Services, Azure SQL Databases, and other Azure resource types that allow sites to scale, be more fault tolerant, and ultimately provide more uptime.
This session is for developers and end clients who want to leverage Azure to host their sites in a modern way.
Headless CMS Architecture Patterns
Using a Headless and API-First approach comes with a problem. With only an API (or multiple) to start with, how do you know you are building your project codebase ("head") to account for best practices such as caching, security, and best performance. How do you know what path offers to allow for the most flexibility with the least amount of headaches? It isn't the same as just having a database and template engine on the backend.
SaaS based Headless solutions are a powerful way to build modern enterprise class websites. They are also becoming more popular by the day.
Luckily, multiple solutions have now been built around these "API first" platforms. Some best practice architecture patterns have emerged as a result, and this session aims to share them. Attendees will see and learn these patterns for designing, building, and deploying Headless based solutions.
Leave the session with proven architecture patterns and how to apply them when working with a Headless CMS and API first stack.
Supercharged Static Sites in .NET with Statiq + Azure
In this session we will walk through how to build a static site using Statiq, Github, and Azure that is much more than just delivering simple HTML.
Need an API? editable content? authorization? CI/CD? Check check and check. I'll show you to make that static site dynamic with Azure functions, Headless CMS, modern tooling, and Azure Static Web Apps.
Leave this session knowing how you can use your .NET / C# skills to build a blazing fast site that costs almost nothing to run and is a joy to work with.
State-of-the-art Search with Azure AI Search
We all know that providing a good search experience for website visitors is hard. Everyone expects it to “just” work like Bing or Google. Maybe there is a better way, maybe we fix this with help from AI.
Join the session to see how you can leverage Cognitive Services with Azure Cognitive Search in your apps. With AI based semantic search abilities, this technology can provide results that are closer to the intent of the original query. You will also learn how to enhance and enrich search through Cognitive Service Skills like natural language processing, image analysis, entity recognition capabilities.
Don't know what those are? Well that's not a problem because you will find out. You can expect to walk away knowing how to generate your own enrichment pipeline that leverages the power of AI to solve your search woes.
Why not use the same integrated Microsoft natural language stack that Bing and Office have used for more than a decade into your site? Maybe AI can make it "just" work.
How to Win Friends and Influence...Better Developer Estimates
Let's face it, creating estimates for tasks is not an exact science. Whether it is points, hours, level of effort, or whatever else the next fad is, it all mostly boils down to what feels like a shot in the dark.
Join my session to find out a few lessons learned, tips, tricks, and strategies for creating accurate and timely estimates on your developer tasks. I'll share my experiences for creating the majority of estimates at my company for the past 18 years. I'd estimate that the amount of estimates I have created is more than 500 or so...see what I did there?
At the end of the day, if you can create better estimates, than maybe your project managers will end up becoming another one of your long time friends.
CodeMash 2025 Sessionize Event
Momentum 2024 Sessionize Event
dev up 2024 Sessionize Event
Beer City Code 2024 Sessionize Event
THAT Conf 2024
MACH based Website Development in Minutes
Nebraska.Code() 2024 Sessionize Event
International JavaScript Conference
Headless CMS Architecture Patterns
Stir Trek 2024 Sessionize Event
Michigan Technology Conference 2024 Sessionize Event
Digital Summit Dallas
Embracing AI Best Practices in CMS
Michigan DevFest 2023
State-of-the-art Search with Azure AI Search
Beer City Code 2023 Sessionize Event
KCDC 2023 Sessionize Event
SciFiDevConMayTheFourthEvent 2023 Sessionize Event
Kontent Horizons
Delivering on the Promise of AI
Microsoft Ignite 2022
State-of-the-art Search with Azure Cognitive Search
Atlanta Developers' Conference 2022 Sessionize Event
Beer City Code 2022 Sessionize Event
Nebraska.Code() 2022
Supercharged Static Sites in .NET with Statiq + Azure
dev up 2022 Sessionize Event
THAT Conference 2022
State-of-the-art Search with Azure Cognitive Search
Global Azure 2022 Sessionize Event
SciFiDevConMayTheFourthEvent Sessionize Event
Granite State Code Camp 2021 Sessionize Event
Code PaLOUsa 2021 Sessionize Event
Global Azure 2021 Sessionize Event
philly.NET Code Camp 2021 Sessionize Event
Code PaLOUsa 2020 Sessionize Event
philly.NET Code Camp 2020.1 Sessionize Event
Orlando Codecamp & Tech Conference 2020 Sessionize Event
Little Rock Tech Fest 2019 Sessionize Event
Code PaLOUsa 2019 Sessionize Event
Beer City Code 2019 Sessionize Event
philly.NET Code Camp 2019.1 Sessionize Event
Philly.Net Code Camp 2019.1
Let's Take a Tour of .NET Core: CLI,
THAT Conference 2019
How to Win Friends and Influence Better Developer Estimates
Prairie.Code() 2019
How to Win Friends and Influence Better Developer Estimates
Kentico Connection Denver
The Best of Both Worlds
Great Lakes Area .Net UG
Optimizing Azure App Services
Code PaLOUsa 2018
How to Build an E-commerce Chatbot
Little Rock Tech Fest
Build an Open Data .Net MVC site in 30 mins
Chicago .Net Users Group
Build an E-commerce Chatbot
Code on the Beach 2018
Build an E-commerce Chatbot (MS BotFramework)
CodeMash
Slaying the Headless CMS Jabberwocky,
Chicago Coder Conference
Search Bogging you Down? Move it to the Cloud
404 Conference
Good, Better, Best Website Performance Optimization
South Florida Code Camp
AMP up your Site with Accelerated Mobile Pages
GR Dev Day
Search Bogging You Down? Move it to the Cloud!
Kentico Partner Summit
To RFP or not to RFP
Kentico Connection Orlando
Growth Hacking with Kentico
Kentico Connection Brno
How To Wield Kentico 9 in the Real World
DogFoodCon 2015
Integrate & Automate Enterprise CMS Deployments
Kentico Connection Prague
Harness the Power of Marketing Automation
Kentico Connection Boston
- Upgrade like a Pro, Boston, MA
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