Navigating the Future: SQL Server to Fabric Real-Time Intelligence

In today's data ecosystem, professionals face a critical decision: stick with familiar SQL Server technology or venture into Microsoft Fabric's Real-Time Intelligence (RTI) databases. This choice can significantly impact performance, scalability, and overall business intelligence capabilities. As a former SQL DBA and Microsoft Escalation Engineer who's worked extensively with both Azure Synapse and Fabric RTI, I'll guide you through this decision-making process with clarity and practical insights.

We'll explore when SQL Server remains the optimal choice and when RTI databases offer compelling advantages. You'll discover the architecture differences that matter, performance considerations, and cost implications of each approach. I'll demonstrate how your existing SQL skills transfer to Kusto Query Language (KQL), showing familiar patterns and highlighting key differences. Through real-world scenarios and demonstrations, we'll examine migration paths, hybrid approaches, and integration strategies between these technologies.

You'll see firsthand how these systems handle time-series data, complex analytics, and large-scale workloads differently. By the end of this session, you'll have a clear framework for database selection decisions and practical knowledge to implement or migrate to Fabric RTI when appropriate for your organization's needs.