What we’re about
This group is for anyone interested in a discussion with others local to the Houston area around any aspect of Microsoft Azure and it's rapidly-growing, surrounding (non-Microsoft) ecosystem. Non-locals are also very welcome to join!
We meet each month or so - usually the second Tuesday of each month - and talk about some aspect of Azure that might be of interest to as many people as possible. Topics range across both all Azure services and 3rd-Party solutions that are deployed upon it so there should be something for everyone.
Attendees to our events usually cover a wide range, and often include students, project managers, infrastructure-focused IT professionals, Developers, Solution, Application or Enterprise Architects, Security practitioners, "Big Data" Scientists, and business leaders. We also sometimes discuss solutions that 3rd Party (i.e. non-Microsoft) software vendors build on top of Azure to fill in feature gaps (via the Azure Marketplace).
The one thing we try NOT our events to be a 'sales pitch' of any kind: we are just about community, learning about technology and gaining experiences in using them from one-another.
Each event will usually focus on just one Azure area or Service or 3rd Party (Marketplace) solution, and typically have a guest speaker, a high-level overview followed by technical demonstration(s), and a Q&A session so we can not only share stories but everyone can learn from each other's experiences.
We do record our events and post them on our YouTube Channel.
Our Code Of Conduct, which applies to all attendees to all our events, can be found here.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
Upcoming events
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•HybridAgentic AI patterns with Azure AI Foundry and Microsoft Agent Framework
Microsoft Office Houston, 750 Town and Country Blvd #1000, Houston, TX, USCoding Agents like GitHub Copilot and Claude Code proved what works: plan–act loops, tool calling, retrieval/memory, and built-in critique/evaluation. Come to this session to see those patterns distilled and how best to apply them in real world apps.
We’ll use Microsoft Agent Framework and Azure AI Foundry to compose multi-tool agents, connect data sources, add guardrails, and measure quality end-to-end.
Expect pragmatic guidance, examples, and a reference flow you can reuse decide when to use an agent, wire up tools and memory, evaluate behavior, and ship safely behind enterprise controls.
You’ll leave with a mental model, starter templates, and deployment tips to move from “cool demo” to production-grade agentic AI systems!
Our speaker tonight is Vin Kamat, Principal Architect at H&R Block. Vin is based in Houston and will be presenting in person!
Food and soft drinks will be served at ~5:30pm on the 10th floor - we will kick off the discussion there @6pm after everyone has had a chance to eat, meet anyone else you'd like to and have a chat :-). Feel free to start arriving from 5pm on if you are nearby. PLEASE RSVP so we have an accurate food count.
PARKING: For free parking please park across the street on the third and fourth floors of the parking garage at 12711 Queensbury; parking in the Microsoft building is not free.
In-person: 750 Town and Country Blvd #1000 · Houston, TX
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/@HoustonAzureUserGroup80 attendees
Past events
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