DATACON, a Microsoft Data Platform conference, brings together top experts, industry leaders, and data professionals for an immersive five-day experience. Focused on cutting-edge Microsoft data technologies—including Azure SQL Databases, Microsoft Fabric, SQL Server, and Real-Time Intelligence—DATACON delivers deep technical insights and practical solutions to help individuals and organizations unlock the full potential of their data.
With two days of intensive preconference workshops followed by three days of expert-led sessions, attendees gain hands-on experience and in-depth knowledge across a range of specialized tracks, including,&nbsp;Azure Data Services,&nbsp;SQL Server Optimization &amp; Best Practices,&nbsp;SQL Server Data Solutions for Enterprise,&nbsp;Data Warehousing,&nbsp;Data Integration &amp; Transformation,&nbsp;Power BI &amp; Data Visualization,&nbsp;Microsoft Fabric, and&nbsp;Data Security &amp; Governance.
At DATACON, learning comes from the best in the industry. Our speakers include Microsoft MVPs, Microsoft Certified Masters (MCMs), Microsoft Program Managers, Engineers, MCTs, and Regional Directors—each bringing expert-level insights into Azure SQL Databases, SQL Server, Purview, Power BI, Fabric, and more.
Choose a complete learning track to deepen your expertise or mix and match sessions to fit your organization’s specific needs. Whether you’re focused on building data pipelines, designing dashboards, integrating AI into your workflows, or mastering data governance,&nbsp;DATACON&nbsp;is your destination for actionable insights and transformative learning.

DATACON

Room 343-344

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.


Database Administration for the Non Database Administrator

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!

Execution plans explained

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.

The Ultimate Guide to Ola Hallengren's Maintenance Solution

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.

Indexing Internals for Developers & DBAs

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.

Now Where Did THAT Estimate Come From?

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!

Code Changes That Eliminate SQL Server Performance Complaints

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.

Performance and execution plan improvements in SQL Server 2025

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! 

Become a project management samurai with Azure DevOps as your katana sword

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.

A Query Runs Through It: An Introduction to the SQL Server Engine

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 processes



Migration Mystery Solved: Moving SSRS and SSAS to Power BI

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.

SQL Server 2025: The Enterprise AI ready database

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!

Approximate functions: How do they work?

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.


Performance tuning for Azure Cosmos DB

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.

Data Virtualization in SQL Server 2022

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