Most Active Speaker

Sandra Ahlgrimm

Sandra Ahlgrimm

Senior Cloud Advocate, working for Java and AI at Microsoft

Berlin, Germany

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Sandra Ahlgrimm is a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, specializing in supporting Java Developers. With over a decade of experience as a Java developer, she brings a wealth of knowledge to her role. Sandra is passionate about containers and has recently learned to love AI.

As a leader in the tech community, Sandra actively contributes to the Berlin Java User Group (JUG) and the Berlin Docker MeetUp. Her expertise extends beyond coding; she focuses on LangChain4j integrations and serves as the primary point of contact for developer feedback related to Java in Visual Studio Code (VS Code) and the Azure toolkit integration in IntelliJ. Additionally, her interest in performance and event-driven architectures led to her involvement with native images. Therefore, Sandra represents Microsoft on the GraalVM Program Advisory Board.

Sandra’s commitment to empowering fellow developers and fostering collaboration makes her an invaluable asset to the software development ecosystem.

Badges

  • Most Active Speaker 2024

Area of Expertise

  • Business & Management
  • Information & Communications Technology

Topics

  • AI
  • Java
  • Java & JVM
  • GraalVM
  • Container
  • Azure
  • OpenAI
  • MicrosoftOpenAI
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • Women in Tech
  • Women in Leadership

Live Coding: Spring Boot Applications with Visual Studio Code

Is a large and heavyweight IDE truly necessary for developing enterprise applications with Java and Spring? In this live coding session, we demonstrate that there's another way. Utilizing Visual Studio Code and the appropriate extensions for Java and Spring, we present a lightweight and highly performant alternative. This not only provides a great environment for the development of large enterprise Spring applications, but also offers intriguing advanced possibilities to enhance development efficiency - such as the integration of fully containerized development environments. Join us in exploring a fresh perspective on Java and Spring development.

Modernizing Java Applications: Practical Strategies and Techniques

In this session, Sandra Ahlgrimm will discuss the practical aspects of modernizing Java applications using various tools and techniques. The presentation will explore different strategies, emphasizing the importance of evaluating the current system to determine the best modernization approach. Key topics will include the "7 Rs" framework—rehosting, replatforming, refactoring, rearchitecting, rebuilding, replacing, and retiring outdated systems. Due to time constraints, the session will focus on refactoring and rearchitecting. Attendees will learn that while there is no single magical tool for migration, a combination of tools and methods can significantly streamline the modernization process, traditionally a time-consuming endeavor. Tools range from traditional tools like OpenRewrite to AI-driven methods. And aim to bring 6 months updating circles to days or weeks.

I'll start from an old Java 8 samples, available here: https://github.com/Azure-Samples/ms-identity-msal-java-samples

Discuss the theory of updating, including the 7 R principle.

Then Update in action using the OpenRewrite and AI driven Java Updater Microsoft created, discuss it's value, potential failures and opportunities.

It's a demo driven presentation using Java examples.

Java Meets AI: Empowering Spring Developers to Build Intelligent Apps

For over a year, we haven't stopped talking about AI.

As Spring developers, we have an ever-expanding range of tools and frameworks that make integrating AI into business applications more seamless than ever - without needing Python!

But where should you start as a Spring developer? What real-world use cases can you tackle with AI? Should you directly integrate models like OpenAI, Gemini, or Llama, or choose a framework that simplifies the implementation?

Join this session to explore the latest advancements in building intelligent Spring applications and learn about powerful frameworks such as LangChain4j, Spring AI, and Semantic Kernel, and how they compare.

Oh No, Not Another Chatbot - Java and AI for Real Business Use Cases

Join us to explore how Microsoft is advancing Java development with AI.
Sandra and Sean will showcase a real-world example using various innovative frameworks such as LangChain4j and SpringAI.
During the session they will demonstrate and code an app, and no, it’s not another chatbot. Let’s face it, a free text form is not always the best idea for user input. What is more useful and secure?
An image can be more worth than a thousand words. We’ll leverage Java on steroids with Azure OpenAI, Azure Container Apps and a clean microservice architecture, to extract all the necessary information from an image, to fill out forms automatically without any further user interaction.

Experience the flexibility and power of combining Java and AI on Azure and discover how these technologies can transform your applications. Join us to learn practical tips from experts and improve your development skills to shape the future of your applications.

Optimize Java Apps for High Traffic Scenarios

Identifying performance issues by simulating real-world scenarios can be challenging. Learn how you can run your load tests and simulate high-scale loads on your apps, no matter where they're hosted – all without worrying about the infrastructure. In today’s digital landscape, application reliability is of utmost importance. Users expect applications to be available and responsive, regardless of the platform or device they are using. Whether gearing up for a seasonal event like Black Friday, handling tax filings, or striving to meet performance requirements during application development, ensuring uninterrupted service is crucial.
This session will explore the role of load testing in ensuring optimal performance for Java applications by using Azure Load Testing. Discover common performance issues and how Apache JMeter simplifies creating custom test scripts. Unlock valuable insights into performance metrics and identify bottlenecks to optimize your Java applications.

How to Reduce the Footprint of Your Spring Boot Applications

In this session, we'll explore diverse strategies to notably trim down the resource footprint of typical Spring Boot applications. This includes harnessing Spring AOT for standard Spring applications, compiling Spring Boot apps into native images (leveraging GraalVM), and deploying CRaC for instantaneous startup (especially beneficial for scale-to-zero scenarios). We'll conduct a side-by-side comparison of these approaches, delve into the merits and demerits of each technology, and present tangible metrics from real-world applications. Our aim is to provide the audience with insights into the substantial enhancements achievable by employing these cutting-edge technologies.

GraalVM in Action: Exploring Monitoring Metrics in a Native Environment

In this interactive session, we take a close look at GraalVM and its impressive achievements. Example applications have been benefiting from the outstanding startup times in the native environment for some time now. With the latest versions, the build time has also been significantly shortened. The question now arises: What about monitoring? Without the conventional JVM, can we still collect meaningful metrics? And what tools are available to us?

I will deploy a traditional Spring application on native terrain as an example. Additionally, a Quarkus service will be set up. These two services will interact with each other and with databases, providing a comprehensive demonstration of a microservices architecture in a native environment running on Azure Container Apps. Using open-source tools and Azure Monitoring, we will monitor the application and try to tackle this challenge without conventional JVM metrics. Let’s find out together which metrics we can extract and whether they are sufficient to get a comprehensive picture.

WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2025 Sessionize Event Upcoming

July 2025 Berlin, Germany

JCON EUROPE 2025 Sessionize Event Upcoming

May 2025 Köln, Germany

Sandra Ahlgrimm

Senior Cloud Advocate, working for Java and AI at Microsoft

Berlin, Germany

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