Kick-off and briefing for the AI Challenge.

_________________

MeetUp Agenda

18:00 - Arrive. Networking 18:30 - Guest Speaker Talk 19:30 - Pizza. Networking 20:30 - Event Close

_________________

Fast-Track Your Lakehouse Build with a Metadata Framework

In today’s data-driven world, fast and efficient data platform delivery is crucial for staying ahead of the competition. Join me for a dynamic session that demonstrates how to build a metadata-driven Lakehouse with Microsoft cloud native technologies. Using your preferred compute and storage resources, Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, Azure Synapse Analytics or Microsoft Fabric.

Discover how to simplify and overcome common obstacles such as fragmented data ingestion, change data capture, and orchestration scalability using proven best practices. Learn how to leverage automation, open-standards, and seamless cloud integration to accelerate time-to-insight with minimal technical debt. This session is perfect for techies and data leaders alike, seeking to streamline their cloud data platform delivery while maintaining cost control and operational resilience. In summary, unlock the potential to build a Lakehouse in a day by using an open-source metadata driven product accelerator.

_________________

Venue Website

https://www.castlerockbrewery.co.uk/pubs/vat-and-fiddle

_________________

MeetUp Member Resources In GitHub Here:

https://github.com/EastMidlandsData

Including introduction slides and our Code of Conduct.

_________________

Tony Baer, Matt Housley, and Juan Sequeda and I recap our thoughts on Data Day Texas 2025.

.NET Conf: Focus on AI is a free, one-day livestream event that features speakers from the community and Microsoft teams working on integrating AI into .NET applications. Learn how to build intelligent applications with .NET using the latest AI libraries and tools, enhance existing applications with AI features, and see real-world examples of AI in action. Tune into focus.dotnetconf.net on August 20, 2024. Ask questions live and learn how to make your .NET applications smarter.

| Session | Speaker | | :------------------------- |:------------------------- | | Keynote - State of .NET + AI | Scott Hanselman, Maria Naggaga and guests | | Get started incorporating AI into your .NET applications and services | Stephen Toub | | Better together: .NET Aspire and Semantic Kernel | Steve Sanderson and Matthew Bolanos | | Build interactive AI-powered web apps with Blazor and .NET | Daniel Roth | | Navigating the world of AI models in .NET: From local development to the cloud | Bruno Capuano | | OpenAI and Azure OpenAI: A .NET SDK convergence story | Matt Soucoup and Roger Pincombe | | Agents: Patterns and practices for automating business workflows | Kosta Petan and XiaoYun Zhang | | RAG on your data with .NET, AI and Azure SQL | Davide Mauri | | Building Generative AI apps with your data in Azure Cosmos DB | James Codella | | Integrating Semantic Search Capabilities with .NET and Azure: Milvus Vector Database | Tim Spann | | H&R Block: Lessons learnt from applying Generative AI to apps with .NET and Azure | Vin Kamat | | Add Generative AI capabilities to your .NET Web app for Azure App Service | Gaurav Seth | | Observing AI applications from dev to production with .NET Aspire | Anthony Shaw | | Infuse AI in your Windows apps with Windows Copilot Runtime and .NET | Nikola Metulev | | Build your own copilot with Teams AI library and .NET | Ayca Bas and John Miller | | RAG with AI Search and .NET | Matt Gotteiner |

Join us on June 13th for the next edition of Serverless London Meetup. The event will be in person, with talks being recorded.

***

🎫 Tickets

No Eventbrite tickets for this event but there is a hard limit for RSPV :) Wait list will be operating on Meetup.

***

📍Location The event is hosted at Runway East Bloomsbury.

The full address is: 24-28 Bloomsbury Way, London, WC1A 2SN

***

🕚 Rough timings • 6:30 pm - 7:00 pm: Doors open with refreshments • 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm: Talks and Q&A • 8:30 pm onwards: Pub!

***

📣 Talks

Fabien Zucchet: Serverless Engineer at Aleios HTTP interception for Lambda integration testing with Lambda extensions

Matt Meckes: Serverless GTM for UK&I EDA Day Antipatterns ***

☁️ 💫 aleios We help startups disrupt and large organisations to remain competitive using the best of Cloud-Native, Serverless. Experts in delivery of highly scalable systems we connect people, liberate data and create innovation through technology.

VS Code Day is our annual event where you'll learn how to elevate your development workflow with the latest and greatest features of VS Code. This year, we’re excited to delve into AI and you’ll hear from the VS Code team and other industry experts on topics like AI-powered programming with GitHub Copilot, building and deploying generative AI apps to the cloud, enhancing the C# development experience, and more. Whether you’re just starting out or you’re an experienced developer, join us on April 24, 2024 for a day focused on the editor that lets you code anything, cross-platform and free!

SESSIONS

• Welcome to VS Code Day 2024 with Gwyneth Peña-Siguenza and Reynald Adolphe
• View Source: What gets into VS Code and why with Burke Holland
• JavaScript developers: Build fast and have fun with VS Code and Azure AI CLI with Natalia Venditto
• Generating Synthetic Datasets with GitHub Copilot with Alfredo Deza
• Real World Development with VS Code and C# with Scott Hanselman and Leslie Richardson
• Building a RAG-powered AI chat app with Python and VS Code with Pamela Fox
• Beyond the Editor: Tips to get the Most out of GitHub Copilot with Kedasha Kerr
• LangChain Examples with Azure OpenAI Service + VS Code with Rishab Kumar
• AI Made Clear: Practical AI Coding Sessions in VS Code with Bruno Capuano
• Asking Copilot about your workspace with Matt Bierner

Pre-requisites: Resources we think you may find useful related to VS Code Day 2024:

• LinkedIn Clone Repo - https://aka.ms/linkedin-clone
• VS Code Day Cloud Skills Challenge - https://aka.ms/VSCodeDayChallenge

The Inside Economics team is joined by CPI guru and colleague Matt Colyar to discuss the bevy of inflation-related data released this week. First the team dissects the Federal Reserve’s CCAR stress test scenarios and laments the perpetually inconvenient timing of their release. Talk turns to the root causes for the inflation of the past few years and why shelter inflation is so stubborn. The team imagines themselves on the FOMC for a day and what they would do with interest rates going forward.   Follow Mark Zandi @MarkZandi, Cris deRitis @MiddleWayEcon, and Marisa DiNatale on LinkedIn for additional insight.

Questions or Comments, please email us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you.    To stay informed and follow the insights of Moody's Analytics economists, visit Economic View.

Matt Sharp and Chris Brousseau join me to chat about writing their new book "LLMs in Production" (Manning). What's it like to write a book in a field that's changing at light speed? How do two people write a book together? We dive into this and much more.

Note - we recorded this outside at the Utah State Capitol. There's a bit of background noise, but it hopefully doesn't distract from the conversation. It was too nice of a day to be stuck inside :)

Data Relay is back in Manchester on Friday, 6 October

RSVP via website https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/datarelay-2023-manchester-tickets-636529215017

Data Relay will be in Manchester on Friday 6th October 2023, featuring top quality Microsoft Data Platform content from great speakers. The day consists of a series of 50 minute technical presentations for all levels - beginner, intermediate and advanced. You can switch tracks throughout the day to enjoy the sessions that interest you the most. Address: Odeon Great Northern Warehouse, 235 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 4EN Registration: Tickets are on a first come, first served basis. Doors open at 8:30am on the day with sessions starting at 9:00am. Competitions: If you allow a sponsor to scan your QR code you will be entered into their raffle prize draw. By doing so you opt in to receive sales and marketing information from them, using the contact details you provided during registration. All sponsors will provide an unsubscribe link in their emails. Food: We'll be providing a light lunch, plus tea & coffee at a couple of breaks. We will be catering for vegan food, according to your food preferences during registration. Dress Code: Casual First time at Data Relay? Everyone has a 'first event', including the speakers and organisers of this event. We're lucky to be a part of the UK Microsoft Data Platform community, one of the most friendly and welcoming tech communities out there. Whether you're in a group or on your own, you'll be made to feel welcome and will learn lots about new and existing technology. It's a great opportunity to meet your peers and maybe even your Data Platform heroes! If you have any queries, contact us at [email protected] and we'll help you out.

Manchester Scedule 09:00 - Keynote & Welcome 09:30 1 - Saving Your Wallet from the Cloud - Kevin Feasel 09:30 2 - AI Driven Data Enrichment with Azure Cognitive Search - Matt How 09:30 3 - Automating Database Deployments using Azure DevOps - Grant Fritchey 10:45 1 - Delta Lake Tables 101 - Kamil Nowinski 10:45 2 - Get a Load of this - Realistic Load Testing for Power BI, explained! - Matt Lakin 10:45 3 - Introduction to Bicep for the Cloud DBA - Frank Geisler 11:40 1 - Getting Insight from Anything: using IoT for good! - Andrew Blance 11:40 2 - A Hybrid SQL Journey: The daily routine of a Hybrid DBA - Jose Manuel Jurado Diaz 11:40 3 - Combining web apps and AI - how to unlock the power of the Azure OpenAI Service - Ben Jarvis 12:30 Lunch 13:30 1 - Securing Data Workloads with Azure Landing Zones - Chris Murray 13:30 2 - Ned Stratton - Regex in PowerShell: How to grasp it and why you should grasp it 13:30 3 - Sweet streams (are made of this: Hubs, Stream Analytics, Datalake) - Pálmi Símonarson 14:25 1 - The Kusto experience in Fabric - Brian Bønk 14:25 2 - Cognitive Services Extravaganza! - Gosia Borzęcka 14:25 3 - Examples of query tuning in SQL Server - Torsten Strauß 15:40 1 - Model Creation in Azure AutoML and Ingestion Through Excel - Lewis Prince 15:40 2 - DAX Explained Through Dance, Memes and Dad Jokes - Barney Lawrence 15:40 3 - Real-time Fraud Detection Challenges and Solutions - Fawaz Ghali 16:35 Raffle & Close

Summary The most expensive part of working with massive data sets is the work of retrieving and processing the files that contain the raw information. FeatureBase (formerly Pilosa) avoids that overhead by converting the data into bitmaps. In this episode Matt Jaffee explains how to model your data as bitmaps and the benefits that this representation provides for fast aggregate computation. He also discusses the improvements that have been incorporated into FeatureBase to simplify integration with the rest of your data stack, and the SQL interface that was added to make working with the product easier.

Announcements

Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management When you’re ready to build your next pipeline, or want to test out the projects you hear about on the show, you’ll need somewhere to deploy it, so check out our friends at Linode. With their new managed database service you can launch a production ready MySQL, Postgres, or MongoDB cluster in minutes, with automated backups, 40 Gbps connections from your application hosts, and high throughput SSDs. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/linode today and get a $100 credit to launch a database, create a Kubernetes cluster, or take advantage of all of their other services. And don’t forget to thank them for their continued support of this show! Modern data teams are dealing with a lot of complexity in their data pipelines and analytical code. Monitoring data quality, tracing incidents, and testing changes can be daunting and often takes hours to days or even weeks. By the time errors have made their way into production, it’s often too late and damage is done. Datafold built automated regression testing to help data and analytics engineers deal with data quality in their pull requests. Datafold shows how a change in SQL code affects your data, both on a statistical level and down to individual rows and values before it gets merged to production. No more shipping and praying, you can now know exactly what will change in your database! Datafold integrates with all major data warehouses as well as frameworks such as Airflow & dbt and seamlessly plugs into CI workflows. Visit dataengineeringpodcast.com/datafold today to book a demo with Datafold. RudderStack helps you build a customer data platform on your warehouse or data lake. Instead of trapping data in a black box, they enable you to easily collect customer data from the entire stack and build an identity graph on your warehouse, giving you full visibility and control. Their SDKs make event streaming from any app or website easy, and their extensive library of integrations enable you to automatically send data to hundreds of downstream tools. Sign up free at dataengineeringpodcast.com/rudder Build Data Pipelines. Not DAGs. That’s the spirit behind Upsolver SQLake, a new self-service data pipeline platform that lets you build batch and streaming pipelines without falling into the black hole of DAG-based orchestration. All you do is write a query in SQL to declare your transformation, and SQLake will turn it into a continuous pipeline that scales to petabytes and delivers up to the minute fresh data. SQLake supports a broad set of transformations, including high-cardinality joins, aggregations, upserts and window operations. Output data can be streamed into a data lake for query engines like Presto, Trino or Spark SQL, a data warehouse like Snowflake or Redshift., or any other destination you choose. Pricing for SQLake is simple. You pay $99 per terabyte ingested into your data lake using SQLake, and run unlimited transformation pipelines for free. That way data engineers and data users can process to their heart’s content without worrying about their cloud bill. For data engineering podcast listeners, we’re offering a 30 day trial with unlimited data, so go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/upsolver today and see for yourself how to avoid DAG hell. Your host is Tobias Macey

Send us a text Part 2 : Back, back again... "Two Sales experts walk into a bar". Frank Attaie, GM Technology IBM Canada, and Matt Kosinski, VP Data and AI and Automation Sales Americas. I start right out with addressing sales performance. 😳 Game on.

Show Notes 00:00 How to address those not achieving quota02:37 What is a Robertson screw driver???04:51 Biggest Sales failures09:05 THE questions that differentiate a tire kicker from true interest09:40 Why IBM? The Sales pitch14:15 Ok... so IBM IS sexy essential! IBM will show, vs. tell, to prove it16:55 What IBM does that no one else can22:21 A day in the life of Matt & Frank25:37 What do Sales guys do for fun?Find Matt : linkedin.com/in/matt-kosinski-71929627 Find Frank : linkedin.com/in/frank-attaie-1356466

Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [email protected] and tell us why you should be next. The Making Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Technical Sales, IBM, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun. Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [email protected] and tell us why you should be next. The Making Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Technical Sales, IBM, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.

If you're in the U.S., happy election day! In the spirit of the mayhem and controversy that the political process brings, we're tackling a topic that is every bit as controversial: tag management. Does Adobe DTM gratuitously delete emails? Has GTM been perpetually unaware of when it is around a hot mic? What does Tealium have against coffee?! Is Signal broadcasting dog whistles to marketers about the glorious data they can collect and manage? What about Ensighten's sordid past where the CEO was spotted in public (at eMetrics) sporting a periwig? To discuss all of this (or...actual content), Josh West from Analytics Demystified joins us for a discussion that is depressingly civil and uncontentious. Many linkable things were referenced in this episode: Josh's Industry War starting blog post (from 2013), Adobe Dynamic Tag Management (DTM), Google Tag Manager (GTM), Signal, Tealium, Ensighten, Ghostery, Observepoint, Hub'scan, the Data Governance Episode of the Digital Analytics Power Hour (Episode #012),  PhoneGap, Floodlight / Doubleclick / DFA, In the Year 2000 (Conan O'Brien), Bird Law, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), Webtrends Streams, data management platforms (DMP), the Personalization Episode of the Digital Analytics Power Hour with Matt Gershoff (Episode #031), josh.analyticsdemystified.com, and Tagtician.

“This book takes the somewhat daunting process of database design and breaks it into completely manageable and understandable components. Mike’s approach whilst simple is completely professional, and I can recommend this book to any novice database designer.” – Sandra Barker, Lecturer, University of South Australia, Australia “Databases are a critical infrastructure technology for information systems and today’s business. Mike Hernandez has written a literate explanation of database technology–a topic that is intricate and often obscure. If you design databases yourself, this book will educate you about pitfalls and show you what to do. If you purchase products that use a database, the book explains the technology so that you can understand what the vendor is doing and assess their products better.” – Michael Blaha, consultant and trainer, author of A Manager’s Guide to Database Technology “If you told me that Mike Hernandez could improve on the first edition of Database Design for Mere Mortals I wouldn’t have believed you, but he did! The second edition is packed with more real-world examples, detailed explanations, and even includes database-design tools on the CD-ROM! This is a must-read for anyone who is even remotely interested in relational database design, from the individual who is called upon occasionally to create a useful tool at work, to the seasoned professional who wants to brush up on the fundamentals. Simply put, if you want to do it right, read this book!” – Matt Greer, Process Control Development, The Dow Chemical Company “Mike’s approach to database design is totally common-sense based, yet he’s adhered to all the rules of good relational database design. I use Mike’s books in my starter database-design class, and I recommend his books to anyone who’s interested in learning how to design databases or how to write SQL queries.” – Michelle Poolet, President, MVDS, Inc. “Slapping together sophisticated applications with poorly designed data will hurt you just as much now as when Mike wrote his first edition, perhaps even more. Whether you’re just getting started developing with data or are a seasoned pro; whether you've read Mike’s previous book or this is your first; whether you're happier letting someone else design your data or you love doing it yourself–this is the book for you. Mike’s ability to explain these concepts in a way that’s not only clear, but fun, continues to amaze me.” –From the Foreword by Ken Getz, MCW Technologies, coauthor ASP.NET Developer's JumpStart “The first edition of Mike Hernandez’s book Database Design for Mere Mortals was one of the few books that survived the cut when I moved my office to smaller quarters. The second edition expands and improves on the original in so many ways. It is not only a good, clear read, but contains a remarkable quantity of clear, concise thinking on a very complex subject. It’s a must for anyone interested in the subject of database design.” – Malcolm C. Rubel, Performance Dynamics Associates “Mike’s excellent guide to relational database design deserves a second edition. His book is an essential tool for fledgling Microsoft Access and other desktop database developers, as well as for client/server pros. I recommend it highly to all my readers.” – Roger Jennings, author of Special Edition Using Access 2002 “There are no silver bullets! Database technology has advanced dramatically, the newest crop of database servers perform operations faster than anyone could have imagined six years ago, but none of these technological advances will help fix a bad database design, or capture data that you forgot to include! Database Design for Mere Mortals™, Second Edition, helps you design your database right in the first place!” – Matt Nunn, Product Manager, SQL Server, Microsoft Corporation “When my brother started his professional career as a developer, I gave him Mike’s book to help him understand database concepts and make real-world application of database technology. When I need a refresher on the finer points of database design, this is the book I pick up. I do not think that there is a better testimony to the value of a book than that it gets used. For this reason I have wholeheartedly recommended to my peers and students that they utilize this book in their day-to-day development tasks.” – Chris Kunicki, Senior Consultant, OfficeZealot.com “Mike has always had an incredible knack for taking the most complex topics, breaking them down, and explaining them so that anyone can ‘get it.’ He has honed and polished his first very, very good edition and made it even better. If you're just starting out building database applications, this book is a must-read cover to cover. Expert designers will find Mike’s approach fresh and enlightening and a source of great material for training others.” – John Viescas, President, Viescas Consulting, Inc., author of Running Microsoft Access 2000 and coauthor of SQL Queries for Mere Mortals “Whether you need to learn about relational database design in general, design a relational database, understand relational database terminology, or learn best practices for implementing a relational database, Database Design for Mere Mortals™, Second Edition, is an indispensable book that you’ll refer to often. With his many years of real-world experience designing relational databases, Michael shows you how to analyze and improve existing databases, implement keys, define table relationships and business rules, and create data views, resulting in data integrity, uniform access to data, and reduced data-entry errors.” – Paul Cornell, Site Editor, MSDN Office Developer Center Sound database design can save hours of development time and ensure functionality and reliability. is a straightforward, platform-independent tutorial on the basic principles of relational database design. It provides a commonsense design methodology for developing databases that work. Database Design for Mere Mortals™, Second Edition, Database design expert Michael J. Hernandez has expanded his best-selling first edition, maintaining its hands-on approach and accessibility while updating its coverage and including even more examples and illustrations. This edition features a CD-ROM that includes diagrams of sample databases, as well as design guidelines, documentation forms, and examples of the database design process. This book will give you the knowledge and tools you need to create efficient and effective relational databases.