Anna-Maria Wykes

Discover the power of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a groundbreaking, open framework designed to standardize and streamline interactions between AI models and client applications. As organizations increasingly rely on AI-driven tools, the need for consistent, reliable, and interoperable communication patterns has…

Discover the power of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a groundbreaking, open framework designed to standardize and streamline interactions between AI models and client applications. As organizations increasingly rely on AI-driven tools, the need for consistent, reliable, and interoperable communication patterns has…

Anthropic’s Claude is now available in Microsoft Foundry—opening new possibilities for enterprise data modernization. This session shares real-world experience using Claude to build intelligent agents that migrate legacy open-source Spark ETL pipelines to Databricks. We discuss how an approach...

A practical, vendor-neutral comparison of Iceberg, Delta Lake, and Hudi—grounded in real-world experience migrating a large investment-industry platform from Hudi to Delta. This session explores key architectural differences, the growing Iceberg–Delta race, and the challenges organizations face...

Are your data projects sinking instead of sailing to success? Break silos, boost collaboration, and drive success with DevOps! Learn to streamline teamwork, automate pipelines with CI/CD, ensure quality with testing, and build scalable, feedback-driven systems. Transform ideas into action!

Have you been asked by your employer to start exploring AI, especially LLMs (Large Language Models)? How could it help your business? How to use ChatGPT? Do you want to better understand AI tooling that will allow you to generate and interpret images? Such as DALL·E and CLIP? Whatever your journey, more and more of us want to better understand OpenAI and what it can offer us. Whether your thirst for understanding of OpenAI is a result of your day job, or simply a growing interest, the suite of tools available within OpenAI is invaluable. However, how suitable is it to start using these tools professionally? If you are asking yourself this question you are not alone. One of the most common questions emerging from the industry is “What is the difference between OpenAI and Azure OpenAI?” In this session, we will look at the differences between OpenAI (including ChatGPT Free, Plus and Enterprise) and Azure OpenAI. We’ll look at when best to use each offering, with direct comparisons including security, reliability, training, and support. By the end of this session, you will have a better understanding of the different serving offerings for OpenAI and have more confidence in when to use each one.

Are you a DBA trying to learn more about Lakehouse’s? Or a Data Engineer wanting to better understand traditional Data Warehousing? Whether you are from a DBA or Data Engineering background, understanding the differences between traditional Warehousing systems and Lakehouse’s is invaluable. This...

Azure DevOps is the leading deployment tool for build and release solutions end to end. It helps you plan your Agile project, manages Git code, and deploys solutions using Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) pipelines. In this session we will cover some of the core...

Applying DevOps to Databricks can be a daunting task. In this talk this will be broken down into bite size chunks. Common DevOps subject areas will be covered, including CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment), IAC (Infrastructure as Code) and Build Agents. We will explore how to apply DevOps to Databricks, primarily using Azure DevOps tooling, but we will also explore the alternatives, including Github Actions. As a lot of Spark/Databricks users are Python users, we will look at the Databricks Rest API (using Python) to perform CI/CD tasks. For IAC we will primarily look at Terraform, but also explore other options, including ARM templates, Azure Bicep and Pulumi As data professionals come with a variety of different backgrounds and skill sets, this talk will focus on providing options, and live demos, that demonstrate ways of achieving a DevOps solution that can be understood and maintained by everyone

Join Anna Wykes and Falek Miah and develop the knowledge you need to work with Terraform for your Azure Data Platform Solution. In one day, you’ll design and deploy a Azure Data Platform solution in Terraform using a Devops Pipeline. Here you will develop transferable Terraform skills that can...

Introduction into Terraform, Databricks provider and steps required to build an automated solution to provision Databricks workspace and resources into Azure cloud platform using Terraform.

An introduction to becoming a Data Engineer, Anna, Mikey and Ust will introduce the technology stack, tools and development skills needed for data engineering and show you how and where to go to learn them. We'll also show you how the skills you already have can kickstart your journey to...

An opportunity to explore Scala, and why it is truly a “Data Engineers language”. Using Azure Functions, Data Factory, Azure Data Lake Gen2 and Databricks the basics will be explored, followed by real world examples