My Past Presentations - Webinars, Shorts, and Live

I have compiled a list of my technical Webinars, "Azure Every Day" shorts, and Presentations that I could locate. 

Webinars:

Power BI Development Best Practices 

Tips and tricks for managing development backlog and keeping in the know of the Power BI features that make your reports and dashboards shine

Introduction to Azure Data Factory Data Flows 

Do you want to learn the basics of developing wrangling data flows and mapping data flows in Azure Data Factory? What are the similarities and differences between them and when should you use which type?

Azure Data Factory V2: SSIS in the Cloud or Not? 

Azure Data Factory V2 is an Azure Platform-as-a-Service with many SSIS-like features, but is it good enough to replace SSIS? In this session, we will review some of the ETL and ELT features in Azure Data Factory, discuss design patterns for ADF pipelines, review useful activities in ADF and see how closely it compares to SSIS.

Data Engineering Brick By Brick, An Intro to Azure Databricks 

Do you want to take the next step in your career as a Data Engineer?

In this introductory session, learn how to create your first Azure Databricks cluster, use notebooks, and work with data within Databricks.

Getting Started Using Azure ML 

Machine learning is a hot topic today. Learn how to get started using Azure ML, an integrated, complete data science and advanced analytics solution that allows data scientists to prepare data, deploy models in the cloud, and develop experiments. 

Azure Every Day Shorts:

• Preparing for the New Azure Certification Exams  
• What is Azure Data Studio?  
• What is Azure Key Vault?  
• Azure SQL Managed Instance  
• How to Upload and Query a CSV File in Databricks 
• How to Merge Data Using Change Data Capture in Databricks 

Live Presentations:

PASS Data Community Summit 2021 "Hitting the Bricks: an Introduction to Databricks"

Microsoft, Feb 2021, Andie with Bob Rubocki and Sharon Woloshin "Analytics in a Day"

Phoenix SQL Saturday 2019 

• "Intro to Azure Machine Learning" 
• "Azure Data Factory V2: SSIS in the Cloud or Not?"

Phoenix SQL Saturday 2018 

• "Power BI: The Magic of M"
• "Empowering Users with Dynamic Power BI Visualizations"

Lunch and Learn 2023,  "Creating Azure Functions using Python" 

Pragmatic Works Product demos:

• BI XPress demo
• Doc XPress demo
• LegiTest demo

3 Cloud Seeking Awesome Azure People

My company is hiring!!

3Cloud is a technology services firm helping clients transform their business through the power of the cloud. We leverage Microsoft Azure to help clients speed up innovation, operate more efficiently and be more responsive to their client’s needs. As a Microsoft partner, we specialize in Azure migration, cloud-scale custom application development, Internet of Things, analytics, and DevOps achieved through Azure-enabled infrastructure automation. 3Cloud is headquartered in Chicago with additional offices in Dallas and Tampa. 
Get your Azure on and join an awesome team with people like me. 

These are remote roles based in any US city.

Use the link below to see what roles are open for hiring. https://grnh.se/a6fd7f562us

Databricks and Synapse Study Guide

 

We ran out of time in my Q&A session at the PASS Data Community Summit and I wasn't able to answer the question, "Are there any books or materials that you recommend for Databricks and Synapse?". I promised to blog the list, so here it is. 

Synapse

• Once you create an Azure Synapse Workspace, you will see a link that send you directly to the Microsoft documentation on using Synapse. The Microsoft documentation is good. It includes several tutorials and Quick Starts to help you hit the ground running. 
• Once you enter the main screen of Synapse, there's a like to "Knowledge Center", which includes code samples for exploring data with Spark, querying data with SQL and creating external tables using SQL. The Knowledge Center also has a gallery of database templates, sample datasets, sample notebooks, sample SQL scripts and sample pipelines. Definitely check it out and try a few of them. 
• 
  

Databricks

• The official Databricks Documentation has the latest and best information on everything Databricks
• If you are using Azure Databricks, be sure to refer to Microsoft's Azure Databricks documentation because that covers Databricks coding specific to Azure instances including connecting to other Azure services and using Azure's version of the Databricks interface.
• The official Apache Spark Documentation contains documentation for all versions of Spark, and has good code examples to help you determine how to use each function available in each language used in Spark. 
• Databricks Academy -yes, they have their own training, which includes Azure and AWS specific training as well as general Databricks training which is applicable to any Databricks implementation. Some is free, and some is paid. 
• Databricks offers periodic webinars. Definitely sign up for those and the Databricks "Data and AI Summit".  
• Pop on over to YouTube and look up Bryan Cafferky. He has several good videos on Databricks.

Both Synapse AND Databricks

Yes, there are a few bits of documentation which apply to both Synapse and Databricks.

• I highly recommend exploring Microsoft Learn. It has free training on everything in Azure and many of the training modules include labs which walk you through performing various activities in Azure using their Azure lab account so you don't have to pay for the experience of learning how to use certain features. 
• Pragmatic Works still offers weekly free webinars on various topics including Azure, SQL server, Power Apps and more. Sign up on their list to be notified of new content, and explore their archive of past webinars.
• If you're a fan of watching technical videos, "Advancing Analytics" has a series of YouTube videos covering Azure Synapse and another series covering Databricks. He posts new videos periodically, so keep checking back on his page.
• 3 Cloud Solutions also offers periodic free webinars on various Azure Topics. Sign up for notifications from them so you don't miss any or explore their list of past webinars.

If I find any additional resources, I'll add them later, but that's all I have for now.