Welcome

Passionately curious about Data, Databases and Systems Complexity. Data is ubiquitous, the database universe is dichotomous (structured and unstructured), expanding and complex. Find my Database Research at SQLToolkit.co.uk . Microsoft Data Platform MVP

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing" Einstein



Monday, 16 December 2024

Purview Data Governance GA pricing

The Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog general availability has a new pricing model associated with it. It will start from 6 January 2025. The pricing model should make it easier for customers to track and manage as well as help customers understand this.

The 2 pricing elements

Unified Catalog

This catalog enables data stewards to curate assets and data consumers to view and access the catalog.

The pricing example given

5,000 tables, views, stored procedures, resource sets, and AI models in their data map

1,000 unique governed assets in Unified Catalog

4,000 assets not linked to data products or critical data elements are not considered governed assets and therefore not counted

Cost: 30-days, would be $500 a month

Pay-as-you-go price in  East pricing for a standard SKU for Unified Catalog $0.0165 per asset per day or ~ $0.50 per month

Note: Assets that are collected in the Purview Data Map, but not linked to the governance concepts aren't counted as governed assets.

Data management

This part of the data catalog looks at data quality and data estate health management.

There is the concept of a Data Governance Processing Unit (DGPU) which is the amount of service performance consumed for 60 minutes. The basic SKU is the default and an example  Pay-as-you-go Price  is $15 per DGPU and there are 2 other levels standard ($60) and advanced ($240).  

Introducing Microsoft Purview Data Governance GA pricing


Wednesday, 4 December 2024

Microsoft Purview Ignite updates

During Microsoft Ignite there were a number of Microsoft Purview updates

Names changes in products were

  • Microsoft Purview Data Catalog is changing its name to Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog. The goal is to provide a platform for data governance and to drive business value creation in your organization.  Microsoft mentioned data governance isn't just a gatekeeping function but when practiced well it also accelerates data value creation. 
  • Microsoft Purview AI Hub was renamed to Data Security Posture Management for AI (DSPM for AI) which is now GA. 

Data Security Posture Management for AI

Data assessments (in preview) to identify and fix potential oversharing risks in your organization.

Recommendations and policies to detect risky AI usage with insider risk management policy.

Extending support for other generative AI apps, including Copilot Studio, ChatGPT - Microsoft Purview integration with ChatGPT Enterprise Compliance API



Microsoft Security Copilot in Purview is in activity explorer and it can help with data hunting and generation of filters from natural language prompts

Monday, 2 December 2024

Introducing the Model for Responsible Innovation

The Responsible Technology Adoption Unit have published a model for responsible innovation as part of DSIT It looks at the practicalities of ethical risks associated with AI or data driven projects. This model has been tested over many years originally being built in 2021 by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.  Trustworthiness is at its heart with eight fundamentals areas that teams should strive for to build trust: 

  • Transparency
  • Accountability
  • Human-centred value
  • Fairness
  • Privacy
  • Safety
  • Societal wellbeing

Read more here

Responsible Technology Adoption Unit Blog



Friday, 29 November 2024

The year ahead for SQL Server 2025

In the session SQL Server 2025 An enterprise AI-ready database platform the  core features for the next version of SQL Server were shared being based on

  • AI built-in
  • Best in class security and performance
  • Fabric and Azure Arc connected. 

SQL Server 2025 is built from the ground to cloud with AI  ready applications. SQL Server 2025 is to have 

  • Vector store - native vector data type and DiskANN index
  • Model Management - model interfaces ground to cloud using REST
  • Embeddings built-in - text chunking and built-in embedding generation
  • Simple semantic searching - vector distance and vector search
  • Framework integration - LangChain, Semantic Kernel, Entity Framework Core









All changes made for SQL will be deployed across all deployment options and all versions. 




It is integrated with Microsoft Fabric



The year ahead for SQL Server: Ground to cloud to fabric

Responsible AI is embedded and available on premises or in the cloud.

There is now SQL database in Fabric



Azure Arc extends to Azure services to SQL Server anywhere to streamline migrations to Azure. 



Watch more about the latest release from Joe Sack, Erin Stellato and Bob Ward. So many innovations in this version of SQL Serer it changes what options are available for use.

Thursday, 28 November 2024

Microsoft Ignite 2024 keynote

The Microsoft Ignite keynote in Chicago November 2004 looked at adoption, extensibility and ROI. Copilot is the UI for AI. There were many announcements as expected for Microsoft Ignite

Copilot Action - regain focus time and simplify you workday Read More: aka.ms/CopilotActions

Agents in Microsoft 365 Read more:  aka.ms/AgentsinM365

Copilot studio - Autonomous agents and thirty Party Agents. Importantly Copilot Analytics including 

  • Copilot Dashboard
  • Business Impact Report
  • Advanced Insights

to measure AI impact on your business. This impact report will help drive valuable insight to gain business value. It shows how AI is driving revolutionary productivity and changing business.

Read More: aka.ms/CopilotAnalytics



It was exciting to see the announcement of SQL Server 2025


Apply for the preview for the enterprise AI-ready database

Fabric Databases Accelerate app innovation with an AI-powered data platform with Fabric Databases .

It is a new class of cloud databases


















New centralized management and governance controls and risk and safety evaluation for images with Azure AI Foundry announced




hashtag

These governance controls are in private preview
  • create AI reports to govern AI apps and models
  • view and manage key subscription details
  • simplified setup of hubs, projects and resources

The breadth of Azure AI model was shown with their being offerings from a wide collection of frontier and open models.  Being around 1800 models currently.

Risk and safety evaluations for images to assess AI models and apps for harmful outputs. Looking to 
  • Understand frequency and severity of risks
  • Streamline risk assessment processes
  • Measure impact of targets mitigations
Data Governance also took a central conference place because in the age of AI, Data Governance takes on an even more critical, central & important role. Watch the session 'Secure and govern your data estate with Microsoft Purview' BRK317 that covers the new security and governance capabilities. 

Successful AI transformation starts with a security-first approach. The new capabilities announced 

Prevent data oversharing and detect insider risks in Microsoft 365 Copilot
  • Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) for AI, formerly known as Microsoft Purview AI Hub, is now generally available
  • Microsoft Purview DLP for Microsoft 365 Copilot, now in public preview. It enables processing files based on their sensitivity label to restrict Microsoft 365
  • Detect and investigate risky AI usage for Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management and Communication Compliance in public preview
Secure and govern custom AI with new capabilities in Purview, Defender, and Azure AI
  • Public preview of Microsoft Purview DSPM for AI, Insider Risk Management, and data compliance controls for agents  in Copilot Studio
  • AI-Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) in Defender for Cloud is now generally available
  • New centralized management and governance controls and risk and safety evaluation for Azure AI Foundry 
And last but not least  AI regulations preparation, such as the EU AI Act with new capabilities in Purview Compliance Manager and Azure AI.
  • There are 4 new generally available AI compliance assessment  including the EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001, and ISO 23894. 
  • AI reports in Azure AI in private preview


Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Microsoft MVPs and Regional RDs wall 2024

I am really excited to be on the Microsoft MVPs and Regional RDs wall at Microsoft Ignite.

There are lots of amazing announcements this year for Microsoft Fabric, SQL Server, AI Copilot and Microsoft Purview to name but a few. The Microsoft Ignite 2024 Book of News is full of innovations to enable businesses to be AI Ready





Microsoft Ignite 2024 Book of News

Microsoft Ignite is the annual event that showcases technological updates and changes the way people and organizations approach work.

There were an array of  new products and key updates and the ones tha interest me the most are the  growth of Microsoft Copilot,  SQL Server 2025, Fabric databases and governance and responsible AI features.

The book of news is here.