Time: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Enjoy the full program with access to all main activities. Pay what you can to support free community training.

Time: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Presenter: Jerry Nixon - MSFT

Description

Build AI-Powered Applications Using the SQL Language You Know and Trust

SQL AI App in a Day is a hands-on workshop for SQL developers, data professionals, and DBAs who want to build AI-powered applications using T-SQL and the SQL Server engine.

You’ll learn how to enable intelligent retrieval and grounded generative AI while keeping your data private, governed, and protected inside your SQL environment.

Why SQL for AI?

SQL has long been trusted for business-critical data. This workshop shows how to extend that foundation into AI-powered applications:

• Use familiar T-SQL patterns to prepare, retrieve, and ground data for AI
• Keep sensitive data inside your SQL environment, minimizing data movement and exposure
• Apply SQL security concepts — roles, permissions, auditing, and isolation — to AI-enabled applications
• Build AI solutions that are private by design, governed, and enterprise-ready

What You’ll Learn

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:

• Use T-SQL for semantic and intent-aware retrieval
• Store and query vector and embedding data alongside relational data
• Implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) using SQL as the trusted data source
• Use SQL Server as a secure control layer for invoking AI models
• Apply SQL security, access controls, and governance to AI workflows
• Ground AI responses in authoritative SQL data to improve accuracy and trust

Who Should Attend?

This workshop is ideal for:

• SQL developers and database professionals
• Database administrators (DBAs)
• Application developers working with SQL Server or Azure SQL
• Architects introducing AI into secure, governed environments
• Teams looking to incorporate AI using familiar SQL tools and technologies

Reserve your spot and learn how to build modern, AI-powered applications using T-SQL and SQL Server — without sacrificing security, governance, or control.

Time: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Presenter: Kevin Feasel

Description

You don’t need a PhD in data science to make generative AI useful in your database work. But you do need a plan — and that’s what this session delivers.

This full-day training is designed specifically for database administrators and developers who want to move beyond the hype and learn how to put generative AI to work in their daily roles.

What You’ll Learn

We’ll begin with a practical foundation in how generative AI works, using terms data professionals already understand. Then, we’ll explore the case for using generative AI solutions in your day-to-day work.

From there, we’ll survey the current tooling landscape, including:

• Built-in Copilot features in SQL Server Management Studio and VS Code
• Standalone AI assistants
• What works, what doesn’t, and what’s coming next

DBA & Developer Tracks

The heart of the session dives into two areas:

• For DBAs: Vector indexes, hybrid search patterns, and the operational considerations of managing AI-augmented workloads
• For Developers: Pair programming with AI, prompt engineering, and leveraging MCP servers for contextual development assistance

We’ll conclude with a demonstration on building your own AI-powered tools, including standing up an MCP server and vibe coding your first solution.

You’ll leave with the skills and confidence to start bringing generative AI into your workflow on Monday morning.

What to Bring

Attendees may bring a laptop with the following installed if they would like to follow along:

• Visual Studio Code
• SQL Server 2025
• SQL Server Management Studio

Time: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Presenter: Tomislav Hlupić, Ivan Kesedzic

Description

Design it – build it – run it!

Welcome to a full-day journey through enterprise data engineering in Microsoft Fabric — where architecture meets real implementation.

This workshop will take you beyond isolated features and into the real-world design of an enterprise-grade data platform that Microsoft Fabric has evolved into.

Throughout the workshop, we won’t focus on individual tools, but on building a cohesive architecture by connecting ingestion, transformation, orchestration, and monitoring into a unified analytics solution.

Architecture & the Medallion Approach

We’ll start with the conceptual foundations, introducing the Medallion architecture and its implementation in Fabric:

• Bronze
• Silver
• Curated Gold warehouse models

We’ll define which artifacts belong to each part of the architecture, helping you understand not only how things work, but also why they are designed this way in an enterprise environment.

Metadata-Driven Pipelines

Next, we’ll move into practical implementation patterns by demonstrating how to:

• Build metadata-driven pipelines
• Create a supporting metadata database
• Transform static pipelines into scalable, reusable ingestion engines

Data Loading & Orchestration

Once our ingestion engine is up and running, it’s time for Fabric to shine. We’ll explore different data-loading strategies for the warehouse, including:

• Notebooks and Lakehouses for flexibility
• Pipelines and Warehouse for structured orchestration
• Newer approaches using Airflow and dbt

The goal isn’t to identify one “best” solution, but to understand when and why each approach makes sense.

Operations & Monitoring

The final part of the workshop focuses on making the solution production-ready.

We’ll explore how Fabric-native capabilities can be used to:

• Track pipeline execution
• Monitor overall system health
• Support a reliable, production-ready data platform

Ride the Data Bus from Portland or Vancouver to Seattle, Washington — fun included! Pay what you can to support free community training.