Manchester Data Platform User Group

This is a Microsoft community run event were you will get to hear the latest updates directly from the SQL engineering team, with expert‑led sessions spotlighting new capabilities and practical guidance for Azure Data Community members.
During this session we will cover:

• Semantic Index

Speaker:

• Krithika Subramanian & Pooja Kamath

Network, learn, ask a question, meet other folks - these are all things that happen at user group events. These events are a really great opportunity to socialise in an informal learning experience.

Remember to tell your friends and the people you work with; make sure you register as soon as you can.

In-Person only event. Not being recorded.

Please complete the registration form with your full name and organisation you are from - we only collect this information to give to building security to let you into the event.

Please note Torsten will be presenting to the room remotely and Mark will be in the room with us all.

17:45 – 18:00 Intro and updates
18:00 – 19:00 Torsten Strauss - Performance Unleashed: Practical Tuning for Azure SQL and SQL Server.
Are you looking to accelerate Azure SQL workloads while keeping cloud costs under control — or aiming to achieve the best possible performance from SQL Server on-premises?
This session tackles real-world performance challenges by dissecting slow-running queries to uncover inefficiencies and hidden bottlenecks. Through hands-on examples and proven diagnostic techniques, you will learn how to apply intelligent optimization strategies that deliver measurable improvements in speed and resource utilization.
We take a deep dive into the SQL Server query engine to explore how Intelligent Query Processing (IQP) enhances performance — and where its limitations may affect reliability in production workloads.
Whether you are fine-tuning individual queries or managing databases at scale, this session equips you with practical, actionable insights to make your workloads faster, smarter, and more cost-effective — across both cloud and on-premises environments.

19:00 – 19:30 Break & Pizza
19:30 – 20:30 Mark Pryce-Maher - Fabric Were-house vs Murder Lakehouse: Making the right {Halloween} Choice
Fabric Warehouse and Lakehouse use OneLake.
Both support SQL and Power BI.
So what should actually drive your choice between Fabric Warehouse and Fabric Lakehouse?
This session moves beyond feature checklists to the architectural decisions that matter.
We’ll establish clear definitions, explore how each platform works, and compare practical scenarios where one is a stronger fit: SQL-first development, multi-table transactions and business marts versus Spark engineering and mixed-format data.
We’ll challenge common assumptions—including “Lakehouse means no SQL” and “Warehouse is always better for BI” (which it is) and show when combining the two solves a real problem rather than adding unnecessary complexity.
Whether you’re a SQL developer, data engineer or architect, you’ll leave with a practical decision framework grounded in your team’s skills, your data and your workload not a one-size fits all recommendation.