Evolution of Azure Data Platform - Stephen Giles

In this episode Mike and Felipe discuss Data Governance with a focus on Azure Purview, a Data Governance service soon-to-be Generally Available. Purview implements initially the following components Data Map, Data Catalog, Glossary and Data Insights. Those components working together are powerful for any organization interested in understanding their Data Assets. Data Classification and Lineage are also interesting capabilities that allow you to understand what type of data you have and how did it get to the consumption layer.  More about Azure Purview here: Azure Purview for unified data governance | Microsoft Azure Link for the pyapacheatlas implementation: wjohnson/pyapacheatlas: A python package to help work with the apache atlas REST APIs (github.com)

In this episode Mike and Felipe chat about Internet of Things and what we are seeing in the industry. We go deeper on the technical discussion as well.

In this episode Mike and Felipe received Khalil Alfar, Data & AI Customer Succes Lead for Microsoft Canada, to talk about the evolution of the Chief Data Officer Role.  Khalil talks to us about the importance of Data Governance, Strategy and why companies need to understand in what stage they are before investing in this role. Different companies might need different approaches from a CDO perspective. Books suggested: The Chief Data Officer Handbook for Data Governance: Amazon.ca: Soares, Sunil: Books Non-Invasive Data Governance: The Path of Least Resistance and Greatest Success: Seiner, Robert S.: 9781935504856: Books - Amazon.ca

Taraneh (Tara) Khazaei leads the National AI team for Microsoft Canada. She previously worked as an AI Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft and held Data Science positions at Financial Services Companies in Canada. Tara talks to us about challenges she has seen in the industry around starting Data Science projects in the cloud and how the responsibility needs to be shared between different teams within a company. She also talks about what a day-to-day of a Data Science looks like and how to start on the profession.

In this episode we talked to Andrey Cavalcanti, Canada's Data & AI General Manager, about the challenges that Enterprises face when trying to modernize their Data Estate. Andrey talks about what he is seeing overall when talking to C-Level on Enterprises and what Microsoft is doing to help our customers.

In this episode we will interview a Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect Manager, Kevin Poulton. Kevin has worked for companies like IBM, Gartner and is now at Microsoft where he leads the Data Solution Architects for Canada Central. Kevin shares his perspective on career and what he tries to get from candidates. He also shares his career path and what to look for when transitioning careers. Spoiler: We talk a lot about Lifelong Learning and how having this mindset increase your chances. Here is a great resource if you want to learn more about Cloud and solutions Microsoft Learn | Microsoft Docs

In this episode we interview Ross Couldrey, Power BI Solution Architect at Microsoft Canada. Ross shares his career journey and he got to where he is today. Starting at a consulting company fresh out of the university, getting into an operations position at Microsoft then joining the Solution Architecture team. Then we jump into a discussion on Power BI projects, best practices, common pitfalls and more. Hope you enjoy! 

In this episode Mike and Felipe interview Ricardo Wagner. Ricardo is the Accessibility Lead for Microsoft Canada and shares how Data, Inclusion and Accessibility should always go together. We talk about the importance of being empathetic during any code development, including Data Engineering and Data Science. Microsoft hosts an annual Hackathon for its employees and last year the team that Ricardo was part developed an application called MirrorHR to help Families manage Epilepsy. Remarkably interesting to listen to his story. Hope you enjoy it! Ricardo Wagner | LinkedIn Responsible AI principles from Microsoft

In this episode we are going to talk about a trending topic in Data Analytics - Data Mesh This movement started a couple of years ago with a blog post from Zhamak Dehghani where she describes in detail what and why to implement a Data Mesh, what to watch for, etc. Felipe and Mike are going to talk about our experience in the subject and what to think about when starting this discussion. Also the differences between what we described before in a Data Lakehouse/Data Lake. Hope you enjoy!  Reference: How to Move Beyond a Monolithic Data Lake to a Distributed Data Mesh (martinfowler.com)

In this episode Stephen Giles tells his story working with Microsoft Technologies. Stephen has an interesting point-of-view as he worked in Microsoft in the early days of Azure then decided to go work with Microsoft Partners such as T4G and DSI to gather more hands-on experience on implementation. He joined our team again back in Sep 2020. Stephen also talks about the evolution of Azure Data Platform and what he has seen as a Consultant. Enjoy!