Ground to Cloud to Fabric: The State of Microsoft SQL

Anna Hoffman explains how Microsoft SQL spans on-premises, Azure, and Microsoft Fabric, highlighting what’s new in the engine, developer tooling, and migration options. She also demonstrates AI-assisted performance troubleshooting and scalable vector search, and shows how Azure Arc/Azure Local and Foundry-based experiences can support modern data-driven apps.

Overview

The session focuses on how Microsoft SQL can be used across environments—on-premises, Azure, and Microsoft Fabric—while keeping familiar SQL skills and tools relevant.

What’s covered

• How Microsoft SQL connects across:
  • On-premises deployments
  • Azure
  • Microsoft Fabric
• Advances in the database engine and developer experience
• Migration tooling and options for modernizing existing applications
• AI capabilities applied to database operations and troubleshooting

Demonstrations highlighted

• Automatic index compaction
• AI-assisted performance troubleshooting
• Vector search designed to scale with application demand

Platform and ecosystem components mentioned

• Fabric Database Hub
• Azure Arc (for hybrid/edge management)
• Azure Local
• A research-agent experience built with Microsoft Foundry / Azure AI Foundry, positioned around using operational data as a foundation for intelligent applications