An Evening with Joey D'Antoni

We have not one, but 2 sessions with Joey D'Antoni this month!

Title: The Perils of Storing Files in Databases
Abstract:
It starts innocently: a few PDFs in a VARBINARY(MAX) column, or FILESTREAM turned on “just for the attachments.” A few years later, your 2 GB database is 5 TB, and every operational task has become painful. This session looks at what really happens when files live inside SQL Server. Backups, restores, replication and availability groups all slow down. Table scans flush the buffer pool and wreck page life expectancy. Mass deletes stall behind FILESTREAM tombstones and ghost cleanup. And the design quietly blocks you from moving to Azure SQL Database, Managed Instance or Amazon RDS. We’ll then walk through the better pattern: keep files in object storage such as Azure Blob Storage or Amazon S3, keep only URLs and metadata in the database, and let the application tier move the bytes. You’ll leave with a clear case to make to your developers and a simple reference design to start from.

Title: Managing Fabric at Scale, Lessons from the Field
Abstract:
What is the best way to architect Fabric workspaces? How should your network and security models be built? In this session you will learn about best practices across Fabric for naming, deployment, capacity management, security and more.

6:00 pm - get to MS Las Colinas & get some food
6:30 - 6:45ish - Announcements & Ask the Experts
6:45-7pm - Start Presentation
8:30pm - End Presentation; Wrap Up
When: Thursday, October 15, 2026
Food - Pizza