SQLDay 2025 – Wrocław – Sessions

After a packed workshop day, the SQLDay conference officially kicked off on Tuesday with a series of sessions covering cloud, DevOps, Microsoft Fabric, AI, and more. Here is a short overview of the sessions I attended on the first day of the main conference.

Morning Kick-Off: Sponsors and Opening

The day started with a short introduction and a presentation of the sponsors. A good opportunity to acknowledge the partners who made this event possible.

Session 1: Composable AI and Its Impact on Enterprise Architecture

This session (by Felix Mutzl) provided a strategic view of how AI is becoming a core part of enterprise architecture.

Session 2: Migrate Your On-Premises SQL Server Databases to Microsoft Azure

A session (by Edwin M Sarmiento) that addressed one of the most common challenges for many DBAs and IT departments: how to migrate your SQL Server workloads to Azure. The speaker shared a well-structured approach, highlighting the key elements to consider before launching a migration project:

• Team involvement: Ensure all stakeholders are aligned.
• Planning: Migration isn’t just about moving data, dependencies must be mapped.
• Cost: Evaluate Azure pricing models and estimate consumption.
• Testing: Validate each stage in a non-production environment.
• Monitoring: Post-migration monitoring is essential for stability.

Session 3: Fabric Monitoring Made Simple: Built-In Tools and Custom Solutions

This session was produced by Just Blindbaek and he talked about how Microsoft Fabric is gaining traction quickly, and with it comes the need for robust monitoring. This session explored native tools like Monitoring Hub, Admin Monitoring workspace, and Workspace Monitoring. In addition, the speaker introduced FUAM (Fabric Unified Admin Monitoring), an open-source solution supported by Microsoft that complements the built-in options.

Session 4: Database DevOps…CJ/CD: Continuous Journey or Continuous Disaster?

A hands-on session (by Tonie Huizer) about introducing DevOps practices in a legacy team that originally used SVN and had no automation. The speaker shared lessons learned from introducing:

• Sprint-based development cycles
• Git branching strategies
• Build and release pipelines
• Manual vs Pull Request releases
• Versioned databases and IDPs

It was a realistic look at the challenges and practical steps involved when modernizing a database development process.

Session 5: (Developer) Productivity, Data Intelligence, and Building an AI Application

This session (from Felix Mutzl) shifted the focus from general AI to productivity-enhancing solutions. Built on Databricks, the use case demonstrated how to combine AI models with structured data to deliver real-time insights to knowledge workers. The practical Databricks examples were especially helpful to visualize the architecture behind these kinds of applications.

Session 6: Azure SQL Managed Instance Demo Party

The final session of the day was given by Dani Ljepava and Sasa Popovic and was more interactive and focused on showcasing the latest Azure SQL Managed Instance features. Demos covered:

• Performance and scaling improvements
• Compatibility for hybrid scenarios
• Built-in support for high availability and disaster recovery

The session served as a great update on where Azure SQL MI is heading and what tools are now available for operational DBAs and cloud architects.