In this post I want to cover that fact that it has been a very Microsoft Fabric themed 2023 for me. Plus, some other topics relating to this year as well.
To manage expectations, this post is more of a personal summary of this year and is reasonably Microsoft Fabric themed.
It does not include a comprehensive list of updates from other offerings or a vast number of contributions from other great community members.
Admittedly, I just wanted to do an end of year post that gives me a chance to share various links and cover a few topics. Including the battle of the blog posts that appears to be taking place.
In addition, I wanted to say Happy New Year to everybody since this will be my last post of 2023.
To summarize, this post includes:
- Mention of some big updates this year.
- Summary of things I have shared, along with plenty of links.
- Battle for the most viewed blog post.
- Thoughts about 2024 (including speaker diversity policy).
Big year
In reality, it has been a big year for technology. Apart from the Microsoft Fabric announcement other things have happened as well.
For instance, there has been a lot of updates relating to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 2023. For example, Microsoft 365 Copilot was introduced. Plus, Databricks introduced new Generative AI tools. More about AI later in this post.
Before the Microsoft Fabric announcement
Before the Microsoft Fabric announcement at Microsoft Build 2023 I shared a lot of knowledge about other things.
For example, I shared various posts relating to recommended certifications for various services. Including a post about recommended certifications for Azure Databricks enthusiasts.
In reality, I wanted to cover the fact that Microsoft finally updated their documentation about Continuous integration and delivery on Azure Databricks using Azure DevOps. Since I raised a GitHub issue about it in October 2022.
However, I wanted to publish the certification posts first since a lot of people had Microsoft certifications as part of their New Year’s resolutions.
Plus, Microsoft provided a lot of people with an early Valentines present thanks to a SqlPackage update. Which allows you to deploy a dacpac to a serverless SQL pool.
Anyway, by the time I had published those posts I felt that it was too late to publish the Azure Databricks post.
Spreading your SQL Server wings
I started another series of posts after the certification posts. Which covered spreading your SQL Server wings with the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform.
Admittedly, it does now include multiple Microsoft Fabric posts. Including one about spreading your SQL Server wings with Microsoft Fabric.
You can read more about the series in my post about the spreading your SQL Server wings with the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform series.
I shared some new GitHub repositories this year as well. Including one you can use as a template to perform CI/CD for SQL Server 2022 using GitHub Actions.
After the Microsoft Fabric announcement
After the announcement at Microsoft Ignite 2023 about Microsoft Fabric being Generally Available (GA) I started sharing more knowledge about it. Since I had already used it for a while, plus I believe in the premise of it.
I spoke about it at a couple of events and I did a Microsoft Fabric video for this years Festive Tech Calendar.
Plus, I published a fair few Microsoft Fabric posts. As somebody pointed out to me the other week during Microsoft Ignite the Netherlands. Which was hosted in the Hague earlier this month.
To date, including this blog post I have published thirty-two blog posts relating to Microsoft Fabric this year. Which shows how much I believe in the premise of it.
Battle for the most viewed blog post
It appears that the below blog posts are in a bit of a battle for the most viewed post this year.
Even though both have been viewed a lot more than the others this year, there is a very thin margin between them. To the extent that they keep swapping places.
So, it will be interesting to see which of these will be the most viewed blog post of 2023.
Thoughts about 2024
I suspect we will see even more significant updates in 2024.
As far as Microsoft Fabric is concerned, there appears to be a lot still pending on the release plan (roadmap) for next year.
However, I am sure we will see updates from other big offerings as well. Especially as far as AI is concerned.
On a personal level, I will be a lot more involved with the DP-600 exam a lot more both personally and professionally. Which I know others are also involved with.
Personally, I will be sharing my knowledge about what is required for it more. Including co-presenting about it with Pragati Jain (l/t) at Fabric February in Norway.
Professionally, I will be leading an effort to get others in Europe trained up to take the exam for my employer.
Something that I have caught myself wondering more as of late is if we will see more speaker diversity policies appear for events in 2024.
More importantly, ones which events actually apply in practice. Instead of attempting to justify diversity through other ways. Like fabricating female speakers.
DataWeekender has had a speaker diversity policy in-place for some time now. Plus, after discussing with the other DataWeekender organizers I submitted a pull request to add an optional speaker diversity policy to the Data Saturdays website.
I must admit that I tested creating a speaker diversity policy with Copilot in Edge. Since I too have been working more with AI.
It created a far better one than I can. However, if you do decide to generate one with AI, you must ensure you verify the sources and citate any original sources as well.
Final words about a very Microsoft Fabric themed 2023
As you can see, it has been a very Microsoft Fabric themed 2023 for me.
Once again, I want to wish everybody a Happy New Year and a big thanks to those who have supported me one way or another in 2023.
Of course, if you have any comments or queries about this post feel free to reach out to me.
Be First to Comment