Looking back at 2022, I can say that I personally had a great year. Finally we are released from all COVID restrictions, we can go to physical events again, back to our customers, back to the office and see many people in real life again.
It was a very busy year in terms of work, this is also one of the main reasons that I have blogged much less than other years. The inspiration and energy is slowly coming back for this, so with some hope I can change this soon.

And as many would say, I should exercise more in the evenings and not always sit behind my laptop. My work is my hobby, so that will be difficult, but it will be one of my New Year’s Good intentions for 2023. A better work life balance would be better for my health and maybe I should seek help in the form of a coach for that. If you have suggestions for me, let me know.

Speaking/Volunteering

This year I have spoken at several events on the topics of Azure Synapse Analytics and Microsoft Purview.

DataMinds (Virtual)

Did a virtual session for the DataMinds UG on Data Governance with Azure Purview( Yes is was on that moment still Azure Purview and not Microsoft Purview)

Data Minutes (Virtual)

The second event of the year, within my team I proposed to attend this event together. During the event there was a Last-Minute cancellation, at the request of Ben Weissman I gave a short session about Access Control in Azure Synapse. It’s a fun event where you have a bunch of 10 minute blocks. Works very inspiring.

Data Toboggan (virtual)

Talked about access control in Azure Synapse Analytics. Data Toboggan is one of the events that is 100% focused on Azure Synapse Analytics.

SQL BITS

This year I volunteered at SQLBits for the first time and became part of the Orange family and as you can see in the picture it is a very big family. In addition to volunteering, I was also asked by Microsoft to present a session during SQL Bits on Cloud Scale Analytics solutions. Thanks again Tony and Wee Hyong for the invite.

SQLBITS Orange Team 2022

Data Saturday Stockholm

My first time in Stockholm, great event. Bra så alla tillbaka personligen This means great, so everyone back personally.

DataGrillen

When we say: Data, bratwurst and beer, we are of course talking about DataGrillen. After more than 2 years of absence, it was that time again in recent days, with speakers from all over the world, beautiful weather and a large group of participants.
And as usual with this event, the first day ends with a barbecue for all participants.
By the way, I can’t imagine a better event to celebrate my 50th birthday. It is therefore a great pity that there will be no DataGrillen next year. Hopefully again soon, in any form.

Datagrillen 2022

Scottish Summit

First time in Glasgow, second time speaking at the Scottish Summit on one of my favorite topics Data Governance and Purview.

DATA Scotland

Second time in 3 months coming to Glasgow and this time it was sunny, over 400 people in attendance and over 50 sessions.

DATA SCOTLAND 2022

DataMindsConnect

This year I volunteered for 2 days, the event was sold out with over 650 attendees. For us as Dutch people, the event is easily accessible by car, which means that many Dutch people are also present as participants.

Experts Living in the Netherlands

This was a very big IT event in the Netherlands, my employer InSpark was one of the sponsors. But even better to mention that during this event I was allowed to give a session with my colleague Albert, this was the first time that I presented together with a colleague. And this is certainly worth repeating.

Pass Data Community Summit

I’ve always wanted to speak at the Pass Data Community Summit and it’s a dream come true and definitely one of my bucket list items. I had 3 sessions on Microsoft Purview. The event was great again, had great conversations and met so many old and new people again. Nice thing about this event was that a MVP pre day was also organized on the Microsoft Campus, thanks again to Rie Merritt for the entire organization and putting together the agenda. It always remains a wonderful feeling to be on the Campus. Hopefully we can go to Seattle again next year. And let’s not forget the day that as a community we showed our support to Hugo Kornelis #teamhugo. This was a very and beautifully moving moment, all messages on the socials, all blue shirts. Hugo is fighting Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML.)

Pass Community Summit 2022

The above was not possible with the support from my wife and kids, you are also quite often on the road during the weekends and I would like to thank my employer InSpark very much as well, they are the ones who encourage and financially support all our MVPs, but also other colleagues, to speak at international events.

InSpark

At my employer InSpark, we have made great progress with the Data and AI team this year with Managed Oyxgen, our Data Platform as a Service. The 2023 roadmap for our solution looks impressive and I’m already looking forward to working on it with everyone.
👉 Within our team we can be proud that we:
✅ Having challenging and varied work.
✅ Added even more gears to our accelerators.
✅ Creating lots of space for your own input, innovation and creativity.
✅ Working and contributing to many interesting projects.
✅ Having a good working atmosphere.
✅ Even took yoga classes.
✅ Attend the coolest events and even speak there.

I am therefore very proud of the team that we have all achieved together this year, on to even more beautiful and innovative projects

And the above certainly contributes to the fact that I can close 2022 as a great year and I look forward to 2023 with great pleasure and enthusiasm.

I wish everyone a great 2023, on to a successful year

Rotterdam Vuurwerk Erasmusbrug.

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Managed Oxygen

With Managed Oyxgen, our Data Platform as a Service, we have once again made such major improvements that I did not think it was possible at the beginning of this year, but confirmation came in July 2021. We submitted Managed Oxygen for the Microsoft Partner of the Year awards, we just didn’t win the award but we did become a finalist in the Category Analytics and that out of 4400 entries.
Wow we were so happy with this appreciation, then you know were you worked hard for every day. Compliments to all my colleagues who work every day with such a drive and energy on the development of our Managed Oxygen.

In addition to our Managed Oxygen, we continued working with the whole team on our Nitrogen Accelerator.

• Metadata-driven Framework for Azure Data Factory and Azure Synapse Analytics which allows us to automatically extract data from various sources and  building a Lakehouse.
• Monitoring, Logging and Audit Pipelines
• Build and release pipelines for all the necessary Azure Data services and Power BI in DevOps.
• Data quality and privacy patterns.
• Automated Documentation and other best practices.

An Accelerator that greatly benefits our customers and to which we as a team provide input from all disciplines.

Cool and innovative projects

As InSpark, we are the Cloud Incubator for our mother company KPN, which has the advantage that we can work a lot on innovation. We have done a lot of connected projects this year, such as Connected Vehicles, Connected Ships, Connected containers, with some projects processing more than 70 million messages per day. Still pretty cool to see how easy it all goes and fit within Managed Oxygen. In addition to these Connected projects, we have done projects in which we help cities and local governments with their ever-growing demand for data and data solutions, the Urban Data Platform. We have made the first steps with Azure Percept and I’m looking forward to start our first Azure Percept project this year.

We are still looking for new colleagues to help us with these cool projects. If you want to know more about InSpark and what cool projects we do even more, let me know.

Blog

Just like last year, I wanted to write more blogs and articles, but unfortunately the counter has stopped at 20 this time. My blogs and articles were mostly about Azure Synapse Analytics and Azure Purview. It was good to see that the community is finding my blogs and articles better and better and that’s what it’s all about in the end.

MVP Award

In October last year I became a Data Platform MVP, a great appreciation from Microsoft for all the input and feedback I provide on the various Azure Data Services and my contribution to the Community. When I saw the message in my mailbox I didn’t know what I saw, so happy, I immediately called my colleagues to share the news. They have always supported me in everything I do.

ADF Hackathon

I submitted a ADF Pipeline Template “Scale Dedicated SQL Pool Dynamically using Azure Data Factory control flow“ to the ADF Hackathon in March and my submission was marked as WINNER. I am very proud that a simple template where you can easily save costs has won. This template will help you to scale up and down a Dedicated SQL Pool in Azure Synapse Analytics. See full post of the announcement here.

Events

This year I regularly spoke at Virtual Events such as SQL Bits, Scottisch Summit, DataWeekender, Data Toboggan, Cloud Lunch and Learn Marathon and various DataSaturdays. In October I helped as a volunteer during DataMinds Connect a physical event(my only one in 2021) which was held in Mechelen. This event gave me so much energy again because I saw so many great sessions and talked to so many people again. The event was perfectly organized according to the then applicable conditions in Belgium. My brain and body were no longer used to that and I was completely exhausted after these 2 super fantastic days.

SQL Bits, Scottish Summit, DataMinds and Datagrillen are already planned for this year. I look forward to seeing everyone again.

Whatever a year looks like, the most important thing is that everyone is healthy and safe. I look forward to a great collaboration with everyone.

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