Azure Islamabad User Group — Events
Monthly sessions on Azure, .NET, and the full cloud-native stack. Hands-on workshops, architecture deep-dives, and working sessions hosted at Exceed IT Services Islamabad, TEO International, and Broadpeek IT Islamabad — plus occasional on-site events with partner companies.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure App Service in Production: Slots, Autoscale, and Zero-Downtime Deploys
Kicked off the user-group session with an overview of where App Service fits in the Azure compute ladder, then went hands-on — every attendee set up deployment slots on their own apps and ran a swap. I presented the autoscale rule design I use in production (CPU triggers work, queue-depth triggers work better) and we walked through the Premium tier networking options live. A 20-minute Q&A closed the 2-hour session, with sharp questions on slot-specific app settings and how swap handles warm-up failures.
Event at TEO — Azure SQL Query Store Deep Dive: Finding Regressions Before Users Do
A 2-hour session on Query Store. I walked the group through enabling it on a sample database, then we ran a synthetic load that deliberately regressed a query plan. Each attendee forced a known-good plan from the regressed-query view without a redeploy — several commented they had never done that before. We wrapped with a 15-minute Q&A about when Query Store's auto-tuning is safe to turn on.
Event at Exceed IT — Logic Apps Patterns for Enterprise Integration: Error Handling, Retries, and Dead-Letter Queues
A 2-hour hands-on session on Logic Apps patterns. I demoed a multi-step integration with retries, exponential backoff, and a dead-letter Service Bus queue for unrecoverable errors. Attendees replicated the pattern against their own tenants and we debugged a couple together. Closed with Q&A on Standard vs Consumption plans — about 20 minutes of real discussion there.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure Blob Storage at Scale: Lifecycle Rules, Access Tiers, and Cost Control
A 2-hour session focused on Blob Storage cost control. I presented lifecycle rule design — moving inactive blobs to Cool and Archive — and we ran a cost-impact simulation on a sample account. Everyone wrote their own lifecycle JSON and applied it live. Short Q&A at the end on rehydrate latency from Archive, which surprised a few folks.
Event at Broadpeak — Bicep for .NET Teams: Modules, What-If, and Parameterizing Environments
A 2-hour Bicep intro for teams who were already writing ARM. I showed them how to build a reusable module, compose a dev and prod deployment, and use what-if to preview changes before apply. Attendees ported one of their existing ARM templates to Bicep live. Q&A ran long — about 25 minutes on 'when do we actually pick Terraform over Bicep'.
Event at Exceed IT — AKS Fundamentals: From Zero to a Production-Ready Cluster
A 3-hour AKS workshop. The first hour was presentation on the production-grade defaults I recommend (managed identities, cluster autoscaler, Azure CNI), the second hour was hands-on provisioning, and the third hour was deploying a real workload behind an ingress controller. I showed them how to wire everything into a Bicep template they could reuse. Q&A spread through the whole session — lots of questions about node pool sizing and upgrade strategies.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure Virtual Networks and Hub-Spoke Topologies: When and Why
A focused 1-hour talk on hub-spoke network design in Azure. I presented the reference architecture, compared it with vWAN for larger deployments, and walked through where peering, NSGs, and UDRs actually fit. No hands-on in this tight format, but we had a solid 15-minute Q&A after.
Event at TEO — Cosmos DB Partition Key Design: The Decision That Determines Everything
A 2-hour session on Cosmos DB partition keys. I presented three schema scenarios — multi-tenant, event log, user profile — and showed what happens to RU/s under hot-partition load for each. Attendees analyzed workloads they actually owned and mapped out partition strategies on the whiteboard. Closed with 20 minutes of Q&A on synthetic composite keys.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure Monitor Workbooks: From Raw Metrics to Actionable Dashboards
Short 1-hour session on Azure Monitor Workbooks. I built one live — SLO tracking, error rate heatmap, drill-through to App Insights — and exported it as a template the group could adopt. Brief 10-minute Q&A at the end. Most attendees left saying they'd replace their existing dashboard the same week.
Event at Exceed IT — Rightsizing Azure VMs: Spot Instances, Reserved Capacity, and Savings Plans
A 2-hour cost-focused session. I pulled an anonymized Azure bill live, walked through Advisor rightsizing recommendations, and modeled 1-year and 3-year Reservations against Savings Plans. Attendees picked two workloads from their own tenants and did the math. Q&A ran about 20 minutes on spot VMs and the interruption handling patterns.
Building a Data Lake on Azure: Gen2, Shortcuts, and Medallion Architecture
Hosted on-site at S&P Global, a 4-hour deep-dive on building a data lake on ADLS Gen2. The first session covered lakehouse fundamentals and the medallion architecture, then we built a bronze/silver/gold pipeline with Data Factory live. After a break, the second session went into Synapse Serverless SQL over the gold layer and how Microsoft Fabric's OneLake fits. Q&A was spread throughout — about an hour total across both halves. Afterwards we had food together and shared thoughts informally — great conversations on how the S&P team is thinking about Fabric adoption, and a few attendees stayed to ask specific questions about their own lakehouse migrations.
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Event at Broadpeak — Azure Landing Zones Explained: The Cloud Adoption Framework in Practice
A 2-hour session on Azure Landing Zones. I walked the group through the CAF Enterprise-scale reference implementation, then we pared it down to what a mid-size tenant actually needs. Previewed the Azure Policy scaffolding each LZ inherits. Attendees mapped out next steps for their own CAF rollouts. Closed with 20 minutes of Q&A on when to simplify vs when to adopt in full.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server: Performance, HA, and Migration Playbook
A 2-hour session on MySQL Flexible Server operations. I covered zone-redundant HA, showed them how to read performance insight properly, and walked through a lift-and-shift migration from an on-prem MySQL using DMS. Attendees reviewed their own cutover plans against the checklist I handed out. Q&A at the end was mostly on the single-server-to-flexible migration path.
Event at TEO — Azure Database for PostgreSQL: Flexible Server Deep Dive with pg_stat_statements
A 2-hour hands-on session on PostgreSQL query tuning with pg_stat_statements. Attendees brought their own pg_stat dumps and we worked through top queries by total time and I/O. I showed them how to read the output and decide between missing index, bad plan, or just too-much data. Touched on pgvector and TimescaleDB at the end. About 25 minutes of Q&A mixed in.
Event at Exceed IT — App Service Networking: VNet Integration, Private Endpoints, and Hybrid Connections
A 2-hour session on App Service networking. We enabled regional VNet integration on a Premium plan live, added a private endpoint for inbound, and walked through the Hybrid Connections scenarios that still make sense. Attendees modeled their own app topologies on the whiteboard and flagged which pattern fit their constraints. Q&A ran about 20 minutes.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure SQL Hyperscale: When It's the Right Answer (and When It's Not)
A 2-hour session on Azure SQL Hyperscale. I migrated a Standard-tier database to Hyperscale live on a test subscription, showed the read-replica behavior, and walked through scenarios where Business Critical or Managed Instance is still the right answer. Attendees asked sharp questions throughout — the Q&A was mixed in rather than at the end.
Event at Broadpeak — Service Bus vs Event Grid vs Event Hubs: Choosing the Right Messaging Primitive
A 2-hour decision-framework session on Azure's three native messaging services. I presented Service Bus vs Event Grid vs Event Hubs along message-ownership, ordering, throughput, and DLQ axes, then we mapped three real scenarios attendees brought. Everyone left with a one-page cheat sheet. Q&A was short — maybe 10 minutes — because the framework answered most questions already.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure Files and File Sync: SMB, NFS, and Hybrid Scenarios
A short 1-hour session on Azure Files. I demoed syncing a Windows Server share to an Azure File Share via File Sync, covered SMB vs NFS shares, and the Snapshot-based DR story. Brief Q&A at the end on tiering.
Event at Exceed IT — Terraform on Azure: State, Modules, and Multi-Environment Rollouts
A 3-hour Terraform workshop. Hour one was presentation on remote state with Storage Account blob-lease locking and module design. Hour two was hands-on — attendees built out a multi-environment module and parameterized it properly. Hour three I showed them how to wire a concrete CI/CD setup with GitHub Actions. Q&A ran through the second and third hours — about 30 minutes total.
Event at TEO — Helm Charts and GitOps on AKS: Flux vs Argo CD
A 3-hour session on GitOps for AKS. I walked through authoring a Helm chart for a real app, then we layered Flux and Argo CD on top in parallel so attendees could compare ergonomics, reconciliation, and secret handling. By the end, each person picked a tool to pilot on their own clusters. Q&A mixed throughout — about 25 minutes.
Azure Front Door and Application Gateway: Routing, WAF, and TLS
Hosted on-site at S&P Global, a 2-hour session on the two Azure L7 routing services. I configured Front Door for a global API and Application Gateway for a regional one, then layered a WAF policy over both live. We walked through TLS origination options and which service fits a given architecture. Q&A was lively — about 25 minutes — and afterwards we had food together and shared thoughts. Several of the S&P folks stayed back to talk through their specific edge topology.
Event at Exceed IT — Cosmos DB Change Feed: Real-Time Pipelines Without a Message Broker
A 2-hour session on Cosmos DB Change Feed. I built a change-feed processor in .NET live, used it to drive a secondary index, and contrasted with using Service Bus for the same job. Attendees replicated the pattern on their own containers. Q&A at the end ran about 15 minutes on lease containers and checkpoint semantics.
Event at Exceed IT — Application Insights: Sampling, Custom Events, and Cost-Aware Telemetry
A focused 1-hour session on App Insights cost control. I tuned adaptive sampling, added a couple of custom business events, and showed them the daily cap features. Short Q&A — most questions were about how to sample without losing exception data.
Event at Broadpeak — Azure Batch and HPC Workloads: Pools, Low-Priority Nodes, and Autoscaling
A 2-hour session on Azure Batch for compute-heavy workloads. I provisioned a pool with Low-Priority VMs, submitted tasks that scaled out automatically, and we watched spot interruption patterns in real time. Training-style walkthrough of when to reach for Batch vs Functions vs AKS. About 20 minutes of Q&A at the end.
Event at Exceed IT — Synapse Serverless SQL over Data Lake: Querying Parquet Without Clusters
A 3-hour training session on Synapse Serverless SQL over Data Lake. First hour was presentation on how serverless queries Parquet with no warehouse to provision. Second hour was hands-on with partition pruning. Third hour I showed them how to compare cost/latency against Dedicated SQL Pool for their own use cases. Q&A ran ~30 minutes across the whole session.
Event at Exceed IT — Well-Architected Review: Applying the 5 Pillars to a Real Workload
A 1-hour live Well-Architected Framework review against a workload one of the attendees volunteered. We scored across all 5 pillars and named the top two follow-ups per pillar. No separate Q&A since the whole session was effectively a discussion. Good reflective exercise.
Event at TEO — Zero-Downtime MySQL Migrations to Azure Using DMS
A 2-hour hands-on session on MySQL migrations to Azure. I ran a DMS cut-over rehearsal live with minimal downtime, covered continuous sync, and showed how to prep the source (replication slot, binlog config) and the target. Attendees left with a runbook template they could adapt. ~20-minute Q&A at the end on cutover timing.
Event at Exceed IT — PostgreSQL Read Replicas and Connection Pooling with PgBouncer on Azure
A 2-hour session on scaling PostgreSQL reads safely. I added a read replica to a Flexible Server instance live, placed PgBouncer in front for connection pooling, and we walked through the consistency trade-offs apps need to account for. Demo at the end: an API handling read-vs-write routing. Q&A ran ~15 minutes.
Event at Exceed IT — App Service Deployment Slots, Swap Hooks, and Blue/Green in Practice
A second deeper 2-hour session on App Service deployment slots. I added a warm-up endpoint and swap-hook script, deliberately triggered a warm-up failure, and watched the automatic rollback fire. Attendees rehearsed a blue/green cut-over against their own apps. Q&A at the end was ~20 minutes on slot-specific app settings.
Event at Broadpeak — Azure SQL Security: Always Encrypted, TDE, and Row-Level Security
A 2-hour session on Azure SQL security layers. I configured Always Encrypted on a PII column live, walked through enclave-based computation over encrypted data, and layered RLS for multi-tenant isolation. Good fit for attendees shipping compliance-touching workloads. Q&A mixed throughout — about 25 minutes total.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure API Management: Policies, Products, and Rate Limiting
A 3-hour APIM training session. Hour one: I presented the Products/Subscriptions model and its role in partner APIs. Hour two: hands-on — attendees authored a policy doing JWT validation, per-subscription rate limiting, and response caching. Hour three: I showed them how to export the policy as Bicep and wire it into their deployment pipeline. Q&A was ~30 minutes total, spread throughout.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure Storage Performance: Premium Tiers, Blob Indexing, and Throughput Limits
A 2-hour session on Azure Storage performance. I walked through Premium page blobs for VM disks, Premium block blobs for small-file latency, and Blob Index Tags for ad-hoc lookups — with a demo of each. Covered the per-account throughput ceiling and when you actually need a second account. Short Q&A at the end, ~10 minutes.
Event at TEO — Azure Verified Modules: Standardizing Bicep and Terraform Across Teams
A short 1-hour session on Azure Verified Modules. I showed them how to consume the Microsoft-maintained modules, then contributed a local override live. Discussed versioning expectations. Tight 10-minute Q&A at the end.
AKS Networking Modes: Azure CNI, Kubenet, and Overlay
Hosted on-site at S&P Global, a 4-hour AKS networking deep-dive. First session — I presented and compared Azure CNI, Kubenet, and CNI Overlay on IP exhaustion, then we built a sample cluster in each mode. Break for coffee, then second session on DNS, egress through firewall, and Private Link service. Q&A was roughly an hour across both halves — very engaged group. Afterwards we had food together and shared thoughts for another hour — mostly about where the S&P platform team is heading with their own AKS story and what they're hitting with Private Link service.
Event at Exceed IT — Private Link and Private Endpoints: Removing Public Endpoints from Your Stack
A 2-hour session on Private Endpoints. We set up private endpoints on Storage, SQL, and Cosmos live, then walked through the DNS resolution that makes them actually work (the part that trips most teams up). Attendees audited their own tenants for lingering public endpoints on the spot. ~25-minute Q&A at the end.
Event at Exceed IT — Cosmos DB Multi-Region Writes and Conflict Resolution
A 2-hour session on Cosmos multi-region writes. I enabled multi-region writes live, measured the latency impact on reads and writes, and implemented last-writer-wins vs custom conflict resolution. Practical for anyone building globally distributed apps. Q&A ran ~15 minutes — mostly around session consistency.
Event at Broadpeak — Log Analytics KQL Patterns for Incident Response
A 2-hour session on KQL for incident response. I presented the query patterns real SREs use — anomaly detection functions, joins across tables, saving queries as workbook rows — and attendees adapted them to their own environments live. Several saved the queries for their next on-call rotation. Q&A at the end, ~20 minutes.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure Arc: Managing VMs and Kubernetes Clusters Outside Azure
A 2-hour session on Azure Arc. I onboarded an on-prem VM and a non-AKS Kubernetes cluster live, then applied Azure Policy uniformly across both. Discussed the agent footprint and where Arc actually earns its keep for hybrid estate. Q&A ran ~20 minutes.
Event at TEO — Delta Lake on ADLS Gen2: ACID over Parquet
A 2-hour session on the Delta Lake format. I showed them how Delta works by building it step-by-step — we wrote Parquet files by hand, then layered the transaction log that makes them ACID. Discussed how Fabric, Databricks, and Synapse all consume Delta from the same lake. ~15-minute Q&A at the end.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure Policy at Scale: Governance Without Slowing Teams Down
A short 1-hour session on Azure Policy at scale. I covered Deny vs Audit mode strategy, policy-as-code workflow, and how to give teams exemptions without creating shadow IT. Aimed at platform teams. Brief Q&A, ~10 minutes.
Event at Exceed IT — MySQL High Availability on Azure: Zone-Redundant and Same-Zone HA Modes
A 2-hour training session on MySQL HA on Azure. I provisioned same-zone and zone-redundant modes live, then ran a failover drill and measured the RTO on each. Attendees compared their own HA SLAs against the observed numbers. ~20-minute Q&A at the end.
Event at Broadpeak — PostgreSQL Extensions on Azure: pgvector, TimescaleDB, and Citus
A 2-hour session on Postgres extensions available on Azure. I showed them pgvector (indexing and searching vector embeddings), TimescaleDB hypertables, and the Citus sharding model — with a demo of each. Attendees picked the right tool for each of their own scenarios. ~20-minute Q&A at the end.
Container Apps vs App Service vs AKS: The Decision Framework
Hosted at Folio 3 HQ, this was a 4-hour comparison of Azure's three main container targets. First session — I presented the decision framework and ran the same ASP.NET app on App Service, Container Apps, and AKS so the group could see scaling, networking, and operational-cost differences side by side. Second session was hands-on — attendees deployed their own sample app across all three. Q&A threaded throughout — about 45 minutes total. After we wrapped, we had food together and shared thoughts informally. A few of the Folio 3 folks stayed another hour to talk through their own container roadmap.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure SQL Managed Instance: Lift-and-Shift SQL Server to the Cloud
A 2-hour session on Azure SQL Managed Instance. I walked the group through MI as the landing zone for legacy SQL Server — DTC, SQL Agent, linked servers, all the 'but can it do X' features. Ran a live DMS online migration from a VM-hosted SQL Server to MI with minimal downtime. ~20-minute Q&A at the end.
Event at Exceed IT — Durable Functions Patterns: Fan-Out/Fan-In, Human Interaction, and Monitors
A 2-hour session on Durable Functions patterns. I demoed all four — fan-out/fan-in over blob processing, an approval-style human interaction, the monitor pattern, and async APIs. Attendees adopted at least one pattern for their own projects. Q&A at the end was short, ~10 minutes.
Event at TEO — Azure Storage Explorer and azcopy: Efficient Bulk Data Movement
A short 1-hour session on azcopy and Storage Explorer. I benchmarked azcopy against the portal and rclone for a 100 GB transfer live, tuned parallelism and block size, and discussed when Data Box is the actual answer instead. Quick ~5-minute Q&A.
Event at Exceed IT — Deployment Stacks: Managing Related Resources as One Unit
A 2-hour session on Deployment Stacks. I deployed a stack, updated it, and demonstrated the resource-retention vs delete behavior on removal. Covered the deny-assignments feature too. ~20-minute Q&A at the end — lots of interest since this is a newer feature.
Event at Exceed IT — KEDA on AKS: Event-Driven Scaling Beyond HPA
A 3-hour KEDA session. Hour one was presentation on when KEDA earns its complexity over vanilla HPA. Hour two was hands-on — attendees wired a KEDA scaler against a Service Bus queue and scaled pods from zero to match queue burst. Hour three I showed them how to handle stateful workloads and the failure modes to watch for. Q&A spread across ~30 minutes.
Event at Broadpeak — Azure Firewall vs NSGs vs Network Virtual Appliances
A 2-hour session on network security primitives. I compared Azure Firewall Standard vs Premium, where NSGs still shine, and when a third-party NVA is the right call. Attendees drew their own network diagrams on the whiteboard and picked enforcement points. Q&A ran ~25 minutes — good debate on Premium vs NVAs.
Event at Exceed IT — Modeling a SaaS Multi-Tenant App on Cosmos DB
A 2-hour session on Cosmos DB for multi-tenant SaaS. I presented the three models — shared container, partition-per-tenant, container-per-tenant — with the operational and cost trade-offs for each. Walked through migration from one model to another as a SaaS scales. ~20-minute Q&A at the end.
Event at TEO — Azure Update Manager and Maintenance Configurations: Patching Without Pages
A short 1-hour session on Azure Update Manager. I configured schedules for Windows and Linux VMs live, applied a Maintenance Configuration at scale, and discussed the Arc story for on-prem machines. Brief ~10-minute Q&A.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure VM Scale Sets: Flexible Orchestration and Health Repair
A 3-hour training session on VM Scale Sets. First hour presentation on Flexible Orchestration — mixed VM SKUs, Spot integration, and the Application Health Extension. Second hour hands-on — I showed them how to enable automatic instance repair and we watched it trigger on a deliberately unhealthy instance. Third hour went into scaling strategies and metric-based rules. Q&A ran ~25 minutes total.
Event at Exceed IT — Microsoft Fabric Lakehouses: Eventstream, Pipelines, and OneLake
A 2-hour session on Microsoft Fabric through the lakehouse lens. I built a pipeline that ingests from Eventstream, lands into a Lakehouse on OneLake, and exposes it via Direct Lake in Power BI. Compared with a Synapse-based equivalent — similar capabilities, different ops model. Q&A at the end, ~20 minutes.
Cost Optimization Playbook: Advisor, Cost Mgmt, and Reservation Shared Scope
Hosted on-site at S&P Global, a 4-hour cost optimization workshop. First half was presentation and demo — Advisor recommendations, Cost Management workbook I built live, and Reservation shared-scope strategy across subscriptions. Second half was hands-on — each attendee ran the playbook against a real workload they owned, and we went through autoscale and spot-based savings together. Q&A was continuous, probably 45 minutes total spread through the session. Afterwards we had food together and shared thoughts — the conversation about reservation sharing kept going for another hour, and a few attendees stayed to walk through their own bill line-by-line.
Event at Broadpeak — MySQL Backup and Point-in-Time Restore on Azure
A 2-hour session on MySQL Flexible Server backups. I covered automated vs on-demand backups, cross-region geo-redundancy, and stepped through a PITR drill to a point 30 minutes back. Attendees owning backup SLAs really engaged with this one. ~20-minute Q&A at the end.
Event at Exceed IT — Azure Database for PostgreSQL: Secure Access with Entra ID and Private Endpoint
A 2-hour session on locking down PostgreSQL. I enabled Entra ID authentication on a Flexible Server instance live, disabled password-based access, and added a private endpoint. Showed them how to do key rotation from App Service using managed identities. Attendees reviewed their own Postgres security posture against a checklist. ~20-minute Q&A.
Event at TEO — Running Java and Python Workloads on App Service: Linux, Startup Commands, and AppCDS
A 3-hour session on running non-.NET workloads on App Service. First hour: I deployed a Spring Boot app and a FastAPI app to App Service Linux and tuned startup commands. Second hour: hands-on — attendees did the same with their own apps, and I showed them how to enable AppCDS for Java cold-start improvements. Third hour compared with Container Apps for the same workloads. Q&A ran ~30 minutes.
Event at Exceed IT — Elastic Pools for SaaS: Per-Tenant Performance Isolation Without Per-Tenant Cost
A 2-hour session on Elastic Pools for SaaS. I walked through pool sizing, noisy-neighbor guardrails, and the billing model that makes it work. Attendees ran the math against their own tenant profiles live. Q&A at the end was ~25 minutes — lots of questions about when the pool-level perf ceiling actually hurts.
Event at Exceed IT — Event Grid Namespaces and MQTT v5: Broker-Style Pub/Sub on Azure
A 2-hour session on Event Grid Namespaces and MQTT v5. I wired a simulated IoT fleet live, subscribed to filtered topics, and we discussed the pricing implications of per-message vs per-minute billing. Practical for anyone building IoT-style broker scenarios. ~15-minute Q&A at the end.
Event at Broadpeak — Azure Storage Mover: Migrating On-Prem NAS to Azure Files
A 2-hour session on Azure Storage Mover — the managed migration service for on-prem file shares. I onboarded an agent, defined a job to copy an NFS mount to Azure Files, and we walked through cutover planning with delta sync. Training-style walkthrough. ~20-minute Q&A.
Event at Exceed IT — IaC Security: Checkov, PSRule, and GitHub Advanced Security for Bicep
A 1-hour session on shifting left for IaC security. I compared Checkov, PSRule.Rules.Azure, and GitHub Advanced Security as policy-as-code options for Bicep, then added one to a real pipeline live. Brief ~10-minute Q&A.
Event at TEO — Open Service Mesh and Azure Service Mesh: When You Actually Need One
A 2-hour session on service meshes — specifically, when they earn their complexity. I compared Open Service Mesh, Istio, and the Azure Service Mesh managed offerings on mTLS, observability, and traffic shifting. Most teams walked away with a 'not yet' conclusion, which is exactly the right answer. Q&A ran ~25 minutes — productive debate on whether gateway-only approaches cover most real needs.
Event at Exceed IT — ExpressRoute vs VPN Gateway: Hybrid Connectivity Design
A 2-hour session on hybrid connectivity. I compared VPN Gateway throughput and SLA against ExpressRoute circuits, including the FastPath option. Touched on co-management with on-prem networking teams — usually the harder problem. ~20-minute Q&A at the end.
Event at Exceed IT — Cosmos DB for MongoDB and NoSQL API: Migration Paths and Gotchas
A 2-hour session on moving between Cosmos APIs. Covered the MongoDB API compatibility surface, the NoSQL API's advantages around change feed and Synapse Link, and the one-way nature of the migration. Good for teams deciding which API to commit to. Q&A at the end, ~15 minutes.
SRE for Azure: Error Budgets, SLOs, and Operational Reviews
Hosted on-site at S&P Global, a 3-hour session on applying SRE practices in an Azure-heavy stack. First half I presented SLIs/SLOs against App Insights data and how to set a meaningful error budget. Second half was a rehearsed monthly operational review with the group — we ran it on a real (anonymized) workload. Q&A ran about 30 minutes across both halves. Afterwards we had food together and shared thoughts — some of the best discussion was actually on what counts as an 'incident' worth burning budget on. Good evening all around.
Event at Broadpeak — Azure Dedicated Hosts and Confidential VMs for Regulated Workloads
A 2-hour session on compute options for regulated workloads. I provisioned a Dedicated Host group, compared with Confidential VMs for hardware-attested isolation, and discussed the BYOL licensing implications. ~15-minute Q&A at the end.
Event at Exceed IT — Data Lake ACLs and RBAC: Partitioning Access in Gen2
A short 1-hour session on ACLs and RBAC on ADLS Gen2. I walked through POSIX-style ACLs for per-folder access, plus RBAC at the account level, with a real-world scenario of shared lake with isolated tenant folders. Quick Q&A.
Event at TEO — Year-End Architecture Review: Lessons Learned from 2025 Deployments
A 2-hour retrospective session — year-end architecture review. Five anonymized case studies from attendees on patterns that worked and didn't across 2025. We covered cost, reliability, and team friction. Less a lecture, more a structured discussion. Q&A was continuous throughout, probably an hour total in aggregate — but it was the point, not the wrap-up.
Event at Exceed IT — MySQL Flexible Server: Going-Live Checklist for 2026
A 2-hour session on a refreshed MySQL Flexible Server go-live checklist for 2026. I covered HA, parameter tuning, monitoring, backup retention, and the new migration paths from single-server. Training-style walkthrough of the checklist. ~20-minute Q&A.
Event at Exceed IT — PostgreSQL Query Tuning: EXPLAIN, Auto-Vacuum, and Index Health
A 3-hour Postgres query tuning workshop. Attendees brought real query plans and we walked through EXPLAIN ANALYZE output together, diagnosed bloated tables via pg_stat_user_tables, and tuned auto-vacuum. I showed them how to read plan timings and decide between missing index, bad plan, or statistics out of date. Q&A was effectively continuous throughout the hands-on, ~40 minutes in total.
Event at Broadpeak — Azure Storage Immutable Blobs and WORM for Compliance
A 2-hour session on immutable Blob Storage for compliance. I configured time-based and legal-hold policies live, discussed the FINRA/SEC 17a-4(f) mapping, and covered the version-level immutability added in 2024. Q&A ran ~20 minutes — mostly on legal-hold lifecycle.
Azure Automanage, Update Manager, and Azure Arc-Enabled Servers
Hosted at Orto HQ, a 3-hour session on the Azure-native server management stack. First half covered Automanage best-practice baselines and Update Manager schedules. Second half went into Arc onboarding for non-Azure VMs — I walked the group through hybrid scenarios and we did a live onboarding of a local lab VM. Q&A spread across ~25 minutes. Afterwards we had food and shared thoughts — the Orto team had specific scenarios around their edge estate and the conversation ran another hour.
Event at Exceed IT — Cloud Adoption Framework: Revisiting the Strategy for 2026 and Beyond
A 2-hour session — CAF revisited for 2026. I walked through what's changed in Landing Zones, governance, and the newer AI adoption tracks. Discussed common stumbling blocks on long-running adoption programs. Q&A at the end was about 30 minutes — most attendees were somewhere mid-journey on their own CAF rollouts.