Stay ahead with executive-level perspectives on technology, leadership,
and business transformation.
Stay ahead with executive-level perspectives on technology, leadership, and business transformation.
AI can already sound convincing. The harder test is: can it get work done—safely—across systems, across modalities, and increasingly in the real world? That changes the unit of value from answers to outcomes, and it forces a different set of enterprise choices: platform architecture, operating discipline, and responsible deployment. Two...
When enterprises talk about “AI security,” the focus often narrows to jailbreaks, prompt injection, and hallucinations. The model is seen as the battleground. That’s understandable—and dangerously incomplete. In reality, most AI breaches don’t start with the model. They begin earlier: a poisoned dataset, a tampered training job, a compromised feature...
Why “LLM-as-a-Judge” is essential, risky—and how to use it right When teams demo AI agents, the storyline is familiar: a clean prompt, a neat answer, and confident nods across the room. But real-world agents aren’t tested in sanitized conditions. They face messy, ambiguous requests, incomplete context, policy constraints, and systems...
In enterprise technology, the headlines are rarely the real story. The real story is what changes when the ecosystem moves. Microsoft donating DocumentDB to the Linux Foundation isn’t just about adding another MongoDB alternative to the market. It’s a signal that the industry is finally pushing toward something NoSQL has...
As we step into 2026, one insight from the past year still echoes deeply with me. When I first read Microsoft’s “It’s About Time: The Copilot Usage Report 2025,” I wasn’t just curious about what people ask Copilot. I wanted to understand when they ask, on which device, and what...
Trust — The Real Currency Of The Agentic Era AI agents are rapidly moving from experimental copilots to autonomous collaborators embedded across critical enterprise workflows. Their capability curve is clear—but their trust curve is not. In almost every CXO conversation I walk into, the questions hover in the same space:...
AI-Ready Data doesn’t “happen” because you modernized a platform. It happens because you made a deliberate choice: to build data foundations that can withstand scrutiny, scale, and speed—at the same time. It is the intentional foundation required for artificial intelligence to work reliably, responsibly, and at scale inside the enterprise....
Introduction: Why Cloud Is at an Inflection Point Now For a decade, cloud strategy was a migration story: move workloads, modernize the stack, and assume elasticity would smooth out demand. That framing is running out of road. Not because cloud is any less strategic—but because the constraints have become explicit,...
In three decades of watching technology waves come and go, one pattern has stayed constant. We rename the stack every few years—data warehouses, lakes, lakehouses, self-service BI, GenAI, AI agents. But at the decisive moment, the question in the room is still very human: Do we trust this data enough...
Focusing exclusively on GenAI creates unnecessary risk. That’s not just a warning from Gartner — it’s something I’ve witnessed first-hand across enterprise AI journeys. As a technology leader, I’ve seen the allure of GenAI transform from breakthrough excitement to boardroom pressure. But if we chase GenAI without strategy, we risk...
Every boardroom today is buzzing with AI. Every strategy deck carries a slide on “LLMs,” “agentic workflows,” or “transformational intelligence.” And yet — most AI programs stall long before they create impact. Why? Because enterprises often ignore the unsung hero holding it all together: the Data Architect. Amid the noise...
How We Arrived at the Threshold of Autonomous Systems In 2026, enterprise AI looks deceptively intuitive. Tools are smarter. Agents are more capable. Interfaces are conversational. But beneath that surface lies a structural paradox: AI agents don’t fail because the models are weak—they fail because the systems around them weren’t...
A CIO asked me recently: “Why is everyone suddenly talking about Forward Deployed Engineers? We already have Cloud Solution Architects, Customer Success teams, and AI Architects… what’s missing?” To answer that, I had to go back to 2008. When Cloud Needed a New Kind of Role In 2008, I was...
Most enterprises don’t suffer from a lack of data — they suffer from a lack of control over how that data is accessed, shared, and trusted. Every platform brings its own access model, its own semantics for “who can see what,” and its own audit framework. That fragmentation has quietly...
Enterprise AI has entered its accountability era — where performance must be proven, not presumed. Microsoft’s new Agent Evaluation (Public Preview) in Copilot Studio marks that shift, transforming copilots from experiments into governed, measurable, and continuously improving systems. Official Microsoft announcement What’s New Reusable evaluation sets — import, auto-generate, or...
Microsoft’s Expanding Posture Vision At Microsoft Build 2025, the message was unmistakable — security posture is no longer about systems; it’s about data. With the evolution of Defender for Cloud and Purview, Microsoft introduced a complete posture management continuum that spans from cloud configuration to data behavior. This continuum is...
Regulation Is Redefining Data Security As enterprises embrace cloud transformation and AI-driven operations, one truth has become undeniable: compliance now defines the architecture of data security. From the financial sector to healthcare and public services, regulated industries face an escalating challenge — protecting sensitive data while ensuring jurisdictional and regulatory...
A few weeks ago, in a leadership discussion, someone said — “AI is powerful, but it feels distant — I don’t feel it working for me.” That line stayed with me. For years, AI has lived in the cloud — abstract, remote, and invisible. But the next era of AI...
Human-in-the-Loop: From Comfort Blanket to Control System “Human in the Loop” (HITL) has become one of the most overused phrases in AI. Boards hear it as reassurance. Vendors pitch it as a safety net. Compliance teams treat it as a checkbox. But let’s be honest: not all loops are the...
Governance Gets an AI Upgrade In the last twelve months, I’ve seen nearly every enterprise I work with make the leap into AI — copilots automating workflows, generative assistants reshaping operations, and autonomous agents rethinking decision-making itself. But amid this transformation, one question has echoed in every boardroom: “Do we...
Most enterprises talk about data as their asset. Few realize the real currency is metadata — the “data about data.” Why? Because metadata tells you - What does this dataset mean? Who owns it? How fresh, sensitive, and reliable is it? Where did it come from, and where is it...
Microsoft Fabric’s Defining European Moment FabCon Europe 2025 in Vienna marked a pivotal moment in Microsoft’s data and AI strategy. Over four days, the sold-out conference brought together more than 4,000 attendees, 130+ sessions, and an entire ecosystem of customers, partners, and developers. From the keynote stage to the community...
For decades, careers had a rhythm. You started small, took the grunt work, and proved yourself step by step. That was the contract between ambition and opportunity. I remember mine. I still remember walking into my first job as a C++ developer. For me, it wasn’t just employment — it...
Governance Takes Center Stage Microsoft brought the conversation on AI from innovation to accountability. Among the biggest announcements was the launch of Microsoft Purview Data Security for Generative AI Apps — a blueprint for responsible AI governance. As copilots and AI agents embed themselves across every workflow, enterprises are asking...
Build 2025 — When Fabric Became the Foundation for Enterprise AI Microsoft Build 2025 wasn’t just another developer conference — it was a strategic blueprint for the AI-driven enterprise. Held in Seattle in May, this year’s Build drew thousands of data engineers, AI developers, and enterprise architects to explore one...
A Defining Shift in Microsoft’s AI Data Strategy At FabCon Europe 2025 in Vienna, Microsoft marked a strategic inflection point for enterprise data — the shift from unification to organization. Over four days, the event underscored how Microsoft Fabric, once positioned as a unified analytics platform, has now become the...
Why Scaling AI Matters Now "The future isn't AI-driven — it's AI-scaled. Pilots prove capability. Scale proves strategy."— Gaurav Agarwaal While over 90% of enterprises have launched AI pilots, only 5% have successfully scaled them enterprise-wide. This chasm between experimentation and transformation represents the defining challenge of our digital era....
A New Trust Architecture for the AI Enterprise AI transformation is reshaping how enterprises create value — and it has surfaced a fundamental truth: your AI is only as good as your data. As organizations adopt copilots, generative assistants, and reasoning agents, they’re realizing that data quality, protection, and governance...
A Global Call to Build the Future of Data and AI Vienna set the stage on September 15, 2025, as the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference launched something far bigger than a developer contest — a global movement. The “Hack the Future of Data with Microsoft Fabric” hackathon invited builders, students,...
Technology markets rarely offer a convergence this profound. On one curve, Services-as-Software (SaaS) is reshaping how enterprises consume consulting, IP, and transformation. Services are no longer delivered as bodies on projects are engineered, codified, and packaged like products. The “services firm” is becoming the “software firm,” and that S-curve is...
When enterprises talk about “AI security,” the focus often narrows to jailbreaks, prompt injection, and hallucinations. The model is seen as the battleground. That’s understandable—and dangerously incomplete. In reality, most AI breaches don’t start with the model. They begin earlier: a poisoned dataset, a tampered training job, a compromised feature...
Why “LLM-as-a-Judge” is essential, risky—and how to use it right When teams demo AI agents, the storyline is familiar: a clean prompt, a neat answer, and confident nods across the room. But real-world agents aren’t tested in sanitized conditions. They face messy, ambiguous requests, incomplete context, policy constraints, and systems...
In enterprise technology, the headlines are rarely the real story. The real story is what changes when the ecosystem moves. Microsoft donating DocumentDB to the Linux Foundation isn’t just about adding another MongoDB alternative to the market. It’s a signal that the industry is finally pushing toward something NoSQL has...
AI-Ready Data doesn’t “happen” because you modernized a platform. It happens because you made a deliberate choice: to build data foundations that can withstand scrutiny, scale, and speed—at the same time. It is the intentional foundation required for artificial intelligence to work reliably, responsibly, and at scale inside the enterprise....
Introduction: Why Cloud Is at an Inflection Point Now For a decade, cloud strategy was a migration story: move workloads, modernize the stack, and assume elasticity would smooth out demand. That framing is running out of road. Not because cloud is any less strategic—but because the constraints have become explicit,...
Every boardroom today is buzzing with AI. Every strategy deck carries a slide on “LLMs,” “agentic workflows,” or “transformational intelligence.” And yet — most AI programs stall long before they create impact. Why? Because enterprises often ignore the unsung hero holding it all together: the Data Architect. Amid the noise...
Microsoft’s Expanding Posture Vision At Microsoft Build 2025, the message was unmistakable — security posture is no longer about systems; it’s about data. With the evolution of Defender for Cloud and Purview, Microsoft introduced a complete posture management continuum that spans from cloud configuration to data behavior. This continuum is...
Regulation Is Redefining Data Security As enterprises embrace cloud transformation and AI-driven operations, one truth has become undeniable: compliance now defines the architecture of data security. From the financial sector to healthcare and public services, regulated industries face an escalating challenge — protecting sensitive data while ensuring jurisdictional and regulatory...
Governance Gets an AI Upgrade In the last twelve months, I’ve seen nearly every enterprise I work with make the leap into AI — copilots automating workflows, generative assistants reshaping operations, and autonomous agents rethinking decision-making itself. But amid this transformation, one question has echoed in every boardroom: “Do we...
Governance Takes Center Stage Microsoft brought the conversation on AI from innovation to accountability. Among the biggest announcements was the launch of Microsoft Purview Data Security for Generative AI Apps — a blueprint for responsible AI governance. As copilots and AI agents embed themselves across every workflow, enterprises are asking...
Build 2025 — When Fabric Became the Foundation for Enterprise AI Microsoft Build 2025 wasn’t just another developer conference — it was a strategic blueprint for the AI-driven enterprise. Held in Seattle in May, this year’s Build drew thousands of data engineers, AI developers, and enterprise architects to explore one...
A Defining Shift in Microsoft’s AI Data Strategy At FabCon Europe 2025 in Vienna, Microsoft marked a strategic inflection point for enterprise data — the shift from unification to organization. Over four days, the event underscored how Microsoft Fabric, once positioned as a unified analytics platform, has now become the...
Why Scaling AI Matters Now "The future isn't AI-driven — it's AI-scaled. Pilots prove capability. Scale proves strategy."— Gaurav Agarwaal While over 90% of enterprises have launched AI pilots, only 5% have successfully scaled them enterprise-wide. This chasm between experimentation and transformation represents the defining challenge of our digital era....
A New Trust Architecture for the AI Enterprise AI transformation is reshaping how enterprises create value — and it has surfaced a fundamental truth: your AI is only as good as your data. As organizations adopt copilots, generative assistants, and reasoning agents, they’re realizing that data quality, protection, and governance...
A Global Call to Build the Future of Data and AI Vienna set the stage on September 15, 2025, as the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference launched something far bigger than a developer contest — a global movement. The “Hack the Future of Data with Microsoft Fabric” hackathon invited builders, students,...
Strengthening Governance for the AI Enterprise At Microsoft’s May 2025 governance and security update, one theme resonated across every session and hallway conversation — data trust is the new perimeter. As AI systems scale and Fabric becomes the backbone of enterprise analytics, the question for most CXOs isn’t “Where is...
Ah, the promise: “Now anyone can ask a question in plain English and our AI will instantly show them the top-performing product line this quarter!” It sounds like the holy grail of data democratization. Just wire up a large language model (LLM) to your data catalog, call it a “Co-Pilot,”...
Microsoft’s Next Leap in AI-First Security At Microsoft Build 2025 and subsequent Azure updates, one theme emerged clearly — AI is transforming security, but security must now protect AI itself. To meet this new reality, Microsoft announced AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) within Defender for Cloud — a unified framework...
Microsoft Fabric’s Defining Moment for Responsible AI Las Vegas became the hub of data transformation as the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference 2025 gathered global data and AI leaders from March 31 to April 2. With 200+ sessions, 13 focused tracks, and 21 hands-on workshops, the event was a powerful signal...
"If data is the new currency, then trust, security, and governance are its foundation." In Part 1, we explored the Top Data Analytics Trends of 2025, diving into how businesses are leveraging Hyper-Automation, Real-Time Decision Intelligence, and Adaptive AI to transform data into a real-time, decision-driving powerhouse. But as data-driven strategies...
In the post-COVID digital era, enterprises are undergoing multiple concurrent transformations—data modernization, AI-driven innovation, application transformation, cybersecurity adaptation, and more. These initiatives represent necessary responses to the rising demand for digital fluency, real-time decision-making, and personalized customer experiences. However, managing these transformations in silos limits their effectiveness. Data and AI convergence has emerged as the...
A Subtle Change That Unlocks Big Possibilities Microsoft quietly announced the public preview of VARCHAR(MAX) and VARBINARY(MAX) data types in Fabric Data Warehouse — but make no mistake, this is more than a syntax update. It’s a structural shift that closes one of the most important capability gaps between Fabric...
AI technology is changing the working process of software engineers and test engineers. It is promoting productivity, quality, and speed. Businesses use AI algorithms to improve everything from project planning and estimation to quality testing and the user experience. Application development continues to evolve in its sophistication, while the business...
Recently I was in a conversation with a senior leader of a Public Cloud provider and we end-up having discussion on about impact of Cloud on different roles in enterprises and professional services giants. During the conversation while we agreed on most of the aspects of Cloud Economics, impact on...
AI can already sound convincing. The harder test is: can it get work done—safely—across systems, across modalities, and increasingly in the real world? That changes the unit of value from answers to outcomes, and it forces a different set of enterprise choices: platform architecture, operating discipline, and responsible deployment. Two...
When enterprises talk about “AI security,” the focus often narrows to jailbreaks, prompt injection, and hallucinations. The model is seen as the battleground. That’s understandable—and dangerously incomplete. In reality, most AI breaches don’t start with the model. They begin earlier: a poisoned dataset, a tampered training job, a compromised feature...
Why “LLM-as-a-Judge” is essential, risky—and how to use it right When teams demo AI agents, the storyline is familiar: a clean prompt, a neat answer, and confident nods across the room. But real-world agents aren’t tested in sanitized conditions. They face messy, ambiguous requests, incomplete context, policy constraints, and systems...
As we step into 2026, one insight from the past year still echoes deeply with me. When I first read Microsoft’s “It’s About Time: The Copilot Usage Report 2025,” I wasn’t just curious about what people ask Copilot. I wanted to understand when they ask, on which device, and what...
Trust — The Real Currency Of The Agentic Era AI agents are rapidly moving from experimental copilots to autonomous collaborators embedded across critical enterprise workflows. Their capability curve is clear—but their trust curve is not. In almost every CXO conversation I walk into, the questions hover in the same space:...
Focusing exclusively on GenAI creates unnecessary risk. That’s not just a warning from Gartner — it’s something I’ve witnessed first-hand across enterprise AI journeys. As a technology leader, I’ve seen the allure of GenAI transform from breakthrough excitement to boardroom pressure. But if we chase GenAI without strategy, we risk...
A CIO asked me recently: “Why is everyone suddenly talking about Forward Deployed Engineers? We already have Cloud Solution Architects, Customer Success teams, and AI Architects… what’s missing?” To answer that, I had to go back to 2008. When Cloud Needed a New Kind of Role In 2008, I was...
Microsoft’s Expanding Posture Vision At Microsoft Build 2025, the message was unmistakable — security posture is no longer about systems; it’s about data. With the evolution of Defender for Cloud and Purview, Microsoft introduced a complete posture management continuum that spans from cloud configuration to data behavior. This continuum is...
Regulation Is Redefining Data Security As enterprises embrace cloud transformation and AI-driven operations, one truth has become undeniable: compliance now defines the architecture of data security. From the financial sector to healthcare and public services, regulated industries face an escalating challenge — protecting sensitive data while ensuring jurisdictional and regulatory...
Human-in-the-Loop: From Comfort Blanket to Control System “Human in the Loop” (HITL) has become one of the most overused phrases in AI. Boards hear it as reassurance. Vendors pitch it as a safety net. Compliance teams treat it as a checkbox. But let’s be honest: not all loops are the...
Microsoft Fabric’s Defining European Moment FabCon Europe 2025 in Vienna marked a pivotal moment in Microsoft’s data and AI strategy. Over four days, the sold-out conference brought together more than 4,000 attendees, 130+ sessions, and an entire ecosystem of customers, partners, and developers. From the keynote stage to the community...
Technology markets rarely offer a convergence this profound. On one curve, Services-as-Software (SaaS) is reshaping how enterprises consume consulting, IP, and transformation. Services are no longer delivered as bodies on projects are engineered, codified, and packaged like products. The “services firm” is becoming the “software firm,” and that S-curve is...
ChatGPT and large language models (LLM) are the early signs of how generative AI will shape many business processes. Security and risk management leaders, specifically CISOs, and their teams need to secure how their organization builds and consumes generative AI, and navigate its impacts on cybersecurity. The level of hype,...
AI can already sound convincing. The harder test is: can it get work done—safely—across systems, across modalities, and increasingly in the real world? That changes the unit of value from answers to outcomes, and it forces a different set of enterprise choices: platform architecture, operating discipline, and responsible deployment. Two...
Trust — The Real Currency Of The Agentic Era AI agents are rapidly moving from experimental copilots to autonomous collaborators embedded across critical enterprise workflows. Their capability curve is clear—but their trust curve is not. In almost every CXO conversation I walk into, the questions hover in the same space:...
In three decades of watching technology waves come and go, one pattern has stayed constant. We rename the stack every few years—data warehouses, lakes, lakehouses, self-service BI, GenAI, AI agents. But at the decisive moment, the question in the room is still very human: Do we trust this data enough...
How We Arrived at the Threshold of Autonomous Systems In 2026, enterprise AI looks deceptively intuitive. Tools are smarter. Agents are more capable. Interfaces are conversational. But beneath that surface lies a structural paradox: AI agents don’t fail because the models are weak—they fail because the systems around them weren’t...
Enterprise AI has entered its accountability era — where performance must be proven, not presumed. Microsoft’s new Agent Evaluation (Public Preview) in Copilot Studio marks that shift, transforming copilots from experiments into governed, measurable, and continuously improving systems. Official Microsoft announcement What’s New Reusable evaluation sets — import, auto-generate, or...
A New Era of Autonomy What if businesses could think, learn, and act independently—anticipating disruptions, solving complex challenges, and creating value without human intervention? This is not science fiction; it's the dawn of a transformative era being shaped by Agentic AI, the building blocks of a revolutionary paradigm known as the...
Most enterprises don’t suffer from a lack of data — they suffer from a lack of control over how that data is accessed, shared, and trusted. Every platform brings its own access model, its own semantics for “who can see what,” and its own audit framework. That fragmentation has quietly...
Microsoft’s Expanding Posture Vision At Microsoft Build 2025, the message was unmistakable — security posture is no longer about systems; it’s about data. With the evolution of Defender for Cloud and Purview, Microsoft introduced a complete posture management continuum that spans from cloud configuration to data behavior. This continuum is...
Regulation Is Redefining Data Security As enterprises embrace cloud transformation and AI-driven operations, one truth has become undeniable: compliance now defines the architecture of data security. From the financial sector to healthcare and public services, regulated industries face an escalating challenge — protecting sensitive data while ensuring jurisdictional and regulatory...
Governance Gets an AI Upgrade In the last twelve months, I’ve seen nearly every enterprise I work with make the leap into AI — copilots automating workflows, generative assistants reshaping operations, and autonomous agents rethinking decision-making itself. But amid this transformation, one question has echoed in every boardroom: “Do we...
Governance Takes Center Stage Microsoft brought the conversation on AI from innovation to accountability. Among the biggest announcements was the launch of Microsoft Purview Data Security for Generative AI Apps — a blueprint for responsible AI governance. As copilots and AI agents embed themselves across every workflow, enterprises are asking...
The New Epicenter of Security In the modern enterprise, security has moved beyond firewalls and access lists — it now lives inside the data pipeline. Every alert, every detection, every mitigation is powered by one foundational process: how a platform collects, processes, and protects data. That’s what makes the latest...
Strengthening Governance for the AI Enterprise At Microsoft’s May 2025 governance and security update, one theme resonated across every session and hallway conversation — data trust is the new perimeter. As AI systems scale and Fabric becomes the backbone of enterprise analytics, the question for most CXOs isn’t “Where is...
Microsoft’s Next Leap in AI-First Security At Microsoft Build 2025 and subsequent Azure updates, one theme emerged clearly — AI is transforming security, but security must now protect AI itself. To meet this new reality, Microsoft announced AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) within Defender for Cloud — a unified framework...
Microsoft Fabric’s Defining Moment for Responsible AI Las Vegas became the hub of data transformation as the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference 2025 gathered global data and AI leaders from March 31 to April 2. With 200+ sessions, 13 focused tracks, and 21 hands-on workshops, the event was a powerful signal...
The Strategic Imperative for Securing AI Systems In today’s hyperconnected landscape, AI is not just transforming business models—it is fundamentally redefining how enterprises innovate, compete, and operate. From predictive analytics to generative AI tools like ChatGPT, companies across industries are leveraging AI to unlock new revenue streams, enhance customer experiences,...
New rule addresses concerns over investor access to timely and consistent information related to cybersecurity as a result of the widespread use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence, the shift to hybrid work environments, the rise in the use of crypto assets, and the increase in illicit profits from ransomware...
Today cybersecurity professionals fight an asymmetric battle against relentless, and sophisticated attackers. To protect an organization, defenders must respond to threats that are often hidden among the noise. Not to mention the #securitytalentwar global shortage of ~3.4M million openings in the security field. Security professionals are scarce, and we must empower them...
The ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape presents growing challenges in defending against sophisticated cyber threats. Managing security in today's complex, hybrid/multi-cloud architecture compounds these challenges. This article explores the importance of demonstrating cybersecurity effectiveness and the role of Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) technology. Challenges in Cybersecurity: Demonstrating cybersecurity ROI remains a challenge....
As the cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve, the challenges associated with defending against cyber threats have grown exponentially. Threat vectors have expanded, and cyber attackers now employ increasingly sophisticated tools and methods. Moreover, the complexity of managing security in today's distributed hybrid/multi-cloud architecture, heavily reliant on high-speed connectivity for both...
In enterprise technology, the headlines are rarely the real story. The real story is what changes when the ecosystem moves. Microsoft donating DocumentDB to the Linux Foundation isn’t just about adding another MongoDB alternative to the market. It’s a signal that the industry is finally pushing toward something NoSQL has...
AI-Ready Data doesn’t “happen” because you modernized a platform. It happens because you made a deliberate choice: to build data foundations that can withstand scrutiny, scale, and speed—at the same time. It is the intentional foundation required for artificial intelligence to work reliably, responsibly, and at scale inside the enterprise....
Introduction: Why Cloud Is at an Inflection Point Now For a decade, cloud strategy was a migration story: move workloads, modernize the stack, and assume elasticity would smooth out demand. That framing is running out of road. Not because cloud is any less strategic—but because the constraints have become explicit,...
Microsoft’s Expanding Posture Vision At Microsoft Build 2025, the message was unmistakable — security posture is no longer about systems; it’s about data. With the evolution of Defender for Cloud and Purview, Microsoft introduced a complete posture management continuum that spans from cloud configuration to data behavior. This continuum is...
Regulation Is Redefining Data Security As enterprises embrace cloud transformation and AI-driven operations, one truth has become undeniable: compliance now defines the architecture of data security. From the financial sector to healthcare and public services, regulated industries face an escalating challenge — protecting sensitive data while ensuring jurisdictional and regulatory...
Governance Gets an AI Upgrade In the last twelve months, I’ve seen nearly every enterprise I work with make the leap into AI — copilots automating workflows, generative assistants reshaping operations, and autonomous agents rethinking decision-making itself. But amid this transformation, one question has echoed in every boardroom: “Do we...
Most enterprises talk about data as their asset. Few realize the real currency is metadata — the “data about data.” Why? Because metadata tells you - What does this dataset mean? Who owns it? How fresh, sensitive, and reliable is it? Where did it come from, and where is it...
Microsoft Fabric’s Defining European Moment FabCon Europe 2025 in Vienna marked a pivotal moment in Microsoft’s data and AI strategy. Over four days, the sold-out conference brought together more than 4,000 attendees, 130+ sessions, and an entire ecosystem of customers, partners, and developers. From the keynote stage to the community...
Governance Takes Center Stage Microsoft brought the conversation on AI from innovation to accountability. Among the biggest announcements was the launch of Microsoft Purview Data Security for Generative AI Apps — a blueprint for responsible AI governance. As copilots and AI agents embed themselves across every workflow, enterprises are asking...
Build 2025 — When Fabric Became the Foundation for Enterprise AI Microsoft Build 2025 wasn’t just another developer conference — it was a strategic blueprint for the AI-driven enterprise. Held in Seattle in May, this year’s Build drew thousands of data engineers, AI developers, and enterprise architects to explore one...
A Defining Shift in Microsoft’s AI Data Strategy At FabCon Europe 2025 in Vienna, Microsoft marked a strategic inflection point for enterprise data — the shift from unification to organization. Over four days, the event underscored how Microsoft Fabric, once positioned as a unified analytics platform, has now become the...
Strengthening Governance for the AI Enterprise At Microsoft’s May 2025 governance and security update, one theme resonated across every session and hallway conversation — data trust is the new perimeter. As AI systems scale and Fabric becomes the backbone of enterprise analytics, the question for most CXOs isn’t “Where is...
As enterprises pivot toward AI-driven growth, the cracks in legacy data architectures are becoming impossible to ignore. Disconnected systems, redundant pipelines, and rigid structures are stalling innovation and undermining real-time decision-making. Enter the lakehouse: a unifying architecture that blends the scale of data lakes with the performance and governance of...
Microsoft’s Next Leap in AI-First Security At Microsoft Build 2025 and subsequent Azure updates, one theme emerged clearly — AI is transforming security, but security must now protect AI itself. To meet this new reality, Microsoft announced AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) within Defender for Cloud — a unified framework...
From Possibility to Proof Every technology platform promises transformation — but few deliver measurable, cross-functional impact. Microsoft Fabric is now entering that rare category where the conversation is no longer about potential — it’s about proof. Over the past year, enterprises across manufacturing, retail, and finance have operationalized Fabric to...
Microsoft Fabric’s Defining Moment for Responsible AI Las Vegas became the hub of data transformation as the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference 2025 gathered global data and AI leaders from March 31 to April 2. With 200+ sessions, 13 focused tracks, and 21 hands-on workshops, the event was a powerful signal...
The Strategic Importance of Data Observability In an era where data is the backbone of strategic decision-making, the importance of data observability has never been greater. As data flows through complex systems, across cloud environments, and within distributed networks, ensuring its accuracy, reliability, and availability has become paramount. Without robust observability, data issues can remain undetected, potentially undermining key business initiatives, diminishing stakeholder trust,...
A Subtle Change That Unlocks Big Possibilities Microsoft quietly announced the public preview of VARCHAR(MAX) and VARBINARY(MAX) data types in Fabric Data Warehouse — but make no mistake, this is more than a syntax update. It’s a structural shift that closes one of the most important capability gaps between Fabric...
Setting the Stage for a Data-Driven Enterprise Over the past decade, data has evolved from being an operational asset to becoming the strategic lifeblood of organizations worldwide. Businesses are no longer just collecting data—they’re actively using it to shape decisions, create competitive advantages, and develop new data products that unlock revenue streams,...
The growth in the number of connected devices, new regulatory compliances, the promise of 5G, and evolving methods of using and analyzing data have ushered in a new age driven by insights gained from connecting customer, strategic, and operational data. Businesses are transitioning into becoming more data-centric now, calling for...
When we talk about assets on the balance sheet, Data deserves its row” – Satya Nadella – Microsoft CEO. As an organization, you have a big question in front of you “How to handle user’s data?”, it can be either used to support your business, or it can be used to give your...
For decades, careers had a rhythm. You started small, took the grunt work, and proved yourself step by step. That was the contract between ambition and opportunity. I remember mine. I still remember walking into my first job as a C++ developer. For me, it wasn’t just employment — it...
We all endeavor to cultivate a high-performance work culture in a professional context. However, regardless of size, context, or culture, a high-performing team and work culture must be built on Innovation. Exceptional leaders use new ideas to establish a successful business in this respect. Therefore, inspire and think very innovatively...
As I stand on the threshold of a new chapter, my seven-year journey at Avanade is coming to an end. It's a moment to reflect on the wisdom gained from successes and challenges that have shaped me as a leader. In October 2016, I embarked on a transformative shift, leaving...
Dear Readers, The success pillars of organizations are their employees who dedicate themselves to achieving a company’s desired goals. Current employees are the future leaders who will lead the organizations. In my opinion, it is imperative to empower employees by developing their managerial and leadership skills to teach them a better leadership...
Dear Readers, My mentees often ask me which is a better option for them when they are trying to make a successful career, being a generalist or a specialist? This debate has been around for a very long time in the industry, and it confuses many people especially young software engineers...
A piece of advice to my younger self - “Set all kinds of goals for what you want to achieve in life. No goal is too big with the right plan and vision.” In the past 25 years, I had my fair share of success and failure. I find this...
Dear Readers, On a daily basis, I attend uncountable meetings to create new solutions that benefit our organization and customers. For the past 25 years, I’ve been able to focus on starting my day with a good work plan. However, implementing that plan sometimes requires more effort, discussions, modifications, and...
You want to be A Thought Leader. "Thought leadership" is a hot topic in the corporate world right now, and it's simple to understand why. When people turn to you for your knowledge and insight, you may establish yourself as a prominent industry expert and a well-known voice in your...
The coronavirus pandemic caused massive downturns in numerous industries across the world resulting in unemployment, pay cuts, furloughs, and layoffs. This has changed the idea of a career pivot from something a professional considers for a change, to the necessity for survival. Even employers have noticed and utilized the advantage...
Dear Readers, In this new digital world, each industry is evolving at a very high pace. With this evolution, leaders are not only required to run but completely transform an organization. Sometimes, this evolution creates a crowded agenda. That's where transformational leadership comes into play. Transformational leadership is a leadership...
Dear Readers, A strong strategy provides a roadmap to businesses that helps them pursue the right direction to achieve their goals. But many times, leaders emphasize only defining strategy which results in implementation failures. It is imperative for leaders to understand that strategic planning solely cannot lead an organization towards...
Dear Readers, It is not easy being a leader; it is a role that requires experience, patience, urgency, and impact at the same time to understand the root cause of the issues deeply. Leaders with a strong strategy can inspire employees to look ahead to the greater good and to...
Dear Readers, Some of you reached out asking for my secret recipe for being a successful Tech Leader. As a Tech leader, my approach has been to provide my clients with the best advice and add value to their career, brand, and journey. In this week's 'Letter from My Desk', I...
During the last eight months, quite a few people in my professional network asked me “Why a senior Technology leader needs certification?”. Most of the time questions had 2 parts. a. Certification vs Hand-on experience? b. Why a Technology Leader needs to spend time in upskilling, re-skilling and certification? After a long...
The pandemic has challenged organizations of all sizes and maturity. One of the common pattern across all organization during the pandemic has been a paradigm shift to Remote Working. The workplace today is most distributed and teams need to be more diverse and dynamic than ever before. While organizations are preparing...
In a conversation with one of my mentee Solution Architect, he asked me an interesting question. “What technical skills should I build to be a relevant Solution Architect in the coming future?” I began to answer the question with the relevant technical skills, like Site Resilient Engineering and Responsible AI, but then...
Honored to be on Power Profiles 2017 for Technology  #LPP2017 #TheWayIn https://members.linkedin.com/power-profiles-2017/sg/industry/technology I have been using LinkedIn as a platform for quite some time now and it’s been amazing journey of building professional network and learning from the Industry experts. During last 5+ years, I have used LinkedIn to drive better...
Completed 60 days @ Avanade. It looks like I just transitioned last week from Microsoft. Journey so far has been enriching and full of new experiences and most importantly full of learnings from application of my experience at Microsoft in a new work culture. Key Learnings: Switch from a Products...
From FY-04 to FY-17 has been a long journey for me at Microsoft. 10th Oct 2016 is my last day with Microsoft. It's been an amazing journey with this great company and great friends, and a privilege to see the evolution and transformation of MSFT with 2 CEOs Steve and Satya. I...
Microsoft Fabric’s Defining European Moment FabCon Europe 2025 in Vienna marked a pivotal moment in Microsoft’s data and AI strategy. Over four days, the sold-out conference brought together more than 4,000 attendees, 130+ sessions, and an entire ecosystem of customers, partners, and developers. From the keynote stage to the community...
The Evolving Role of the CISO In today’s hyperconnected digital economy, the role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has undergone a profound transformation. Once defined by technical oversight, the CISO’s position now holds strategic significance within the executive suite. This evolution reflects the urgent need for cyber resilience as a foundational element of business...
In enterprise technology, the headlines are rarely the real story. The real story is what changes when the ecosystem moves. Microsoft donating DocumentDB to the Linux Foundation isn’t just about adding another MongoDB alternative to the market. It’s a signal that the industry is finally pushing toward something NoSQL has...
As we step into 2026, one insight from the past year still echoes deeply with me. When I first read Microsoft’s “It’s About Time: The Copilot Usage Report 2025,” I wasn’t just curious about what people ask Copilot. I wanted to understand when they ask, on which device, and what...
In three decades of watching technology waves come and go, one pattern has stayed constant. We rename the stack every few years—data warehouses, lakes, lakehouses, self-service BI, GenAI, AI agents. But at the decisive moment, the question in the room is still very human: Do we trust this data enough...
A few weeks ago, in a leadership discussion, someone said — “AI is powerful, but it feels distant — I don’t feel it working for me.” That line stayed with me. For years, AI has lived in the cloud — abstract, remote, and invisible. But the next era of AI...
Microsoft Fabric’s Defining European Moment FabCon Europe 2025 in Vienna marked a pivotal moment in Microsoft’s data and AI strategy. Over four days, the sold-out conference brought together more than 4,000 attendees, 130+ sessions, and an entire ecosystem of customers, partners, and developers. From the keynote stage to the community...
Build 2025 — When Fabric Became the Foundation for Enterprise AI Microsoft Build 2025 wasn’t just another developer conference — it was a strategic blueprint for the AI-driven enterprise. Held in Seattle in May, this year’s Build drew thousands of data engineers, AI developers, and enterprise architects to explore one...
A Defining Shift in Microsoft’s AI Data Strategy At FabCon Europe 2025 in Vienna, Microsoft marked a strategic inflection point for enterprise data — the shift from unification to organization. Over four days, the event underscored how Microsoft Fabric, once positioned as a unified analytics platform, has now become the...
A New Trust Architecture for the AI Enterprise AI transformation is reshaping how enterprises create value — and it has surfaced a fundamental truth: your AI is only as good as your data. As organizations adopt copilots, generative assistants, and reasoning agents, they’re realizing that data quality, protection, and governance...
Technology markets rarely offer a convergence this profound. On one curve, Services-as-Software (SaaS) is reshaping how enterprises consume consulting, IP, and transformation. Services are no longer delivered as bodies on projects are engineered, codified, and packaged like products. The “services firm” is becoming the “software firm,” and that S-curve is...
Strengthening Governance for the AI Enterprise At Microsoft’s May 2025 governance and security update, one theme resonated across every session and hallway conversation — data trust is the new perimeter. As AI systems scale and Fabric becomes the backbone of enterprise analytics, the question for most CXOs isn’t “Where is...
"What if the secret to thriving in 2025 isn’t just about having data—but knowing which trends will reshape its power?" Data has evolved from a byproduct of business processes to its most valuable asset. As we step into 2025, businesses are entering an era where data analytics doesn’t just inform...
Dear Leaders, The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed nearly every aspect of life, be it personal or professional. For example, it significantly impacted how companies interacted with customers, customers' purchasing, and the supply chain delivery process. According to a Mckinsey survey of more than 200 organizations across industries, more than 90% of...
Welcome to the 4th part of the series on “Upskilling to Digital Architect” wherein I will focus on the first foundational skills block “Digital Transformation Strategy and Innovation” for digital architects. According to Mckinseyresearch, 70 percent of large scale transformation programs fail. Common pitfalls are resistance to changing culture, lack...
Welcome to the third part of the series on “Upskilling to Digital Architect”; with my perspective on the learning roadmap for Digital Architect across building the foundational skills for Digital Architect. Skills for Digital Architect would fit across seven Foundational Blocks. This part is focused on the broad base starting...
We are living in a hyper-digitally dynamic ecosystem. As we are moving towards a digitally dependent future, the need for Digital Resilience is increasing rapidly. Digital Resilience helps companies by providing several ways for businesses to use digital tools and systems to recover from crises quickly. Today, digital resilience and supply chain resilience...
The Covid-19 took on the role of Chief Innovation for most businesses. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound influence on the way businesses now function. It helped businesses accelerate the Digital Transformation to unprecedented levels and invalidated all the past assumptions. Now every business is a Technology business. Going digital used to be...
Welcome to the second part of the series on “Upskilling to Digital Architect”. The Digital Revolution continues to transform our world. According to IDC, our digital world is now “doubling in size every two years, and by 2020 the digital universe – the data we create and copy annually – will reach 44...
The pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation, and in the future, it will become inevitable. The post-pandemic world needs more flexible production, greater productivity, and the development of new business models and digital solutions. Digital transformation demands specific expertise and a set of practices to align business focus...
Microservice Architecture has been a hot topic in the software world for a while now. It has been seen and rendered as a solution to issues arising from monolithic applications.  But does it hold true to this argument? What are the benefits and challenges of this architecture? I will be debunking the same...
As we cross 2020, most of us are still  functioning remotely and preparing for a hybrid work environment where we will be expected to work from home. How can an organization determine productivity? What can we expect from remote working in 2021? How can leaders motivate their employees who are low...
Microsoft has emerged with a new innovation called .NET 5 wherein it provides a cross-platform development experience overcoming the previous fragmentations in the .NET world. This comes as part of Microsoft’s direct strategy to unify and simplify .NET platform as a result of listening to their customer’s needs. .NET 5 is the natural development and...
As the beginning of 2021 approaches, 5G is predicted to reach around 34% of the global population in the next 4 years. How will 5G revolutionize the present scenario of the market? What are my predictions for a 5G-enabled future? What are the risks associated with 5G? Read this article to know...
The Covid-19 pandemic is, without doubt, the biggest challenge the world has encountered in this century and arguably the biggest since the Second World War. As the year 2020 draws to a close with mixed news — positive on the vaccine development front only to be offset by reports of...
The unprecedented times have forced business needs to evolve with a digital-first approach. How can solution architects help with this transition? What are the skills that make a solution architect relevant in the present times? Read the article as I answer your questions. I have an analogy where I compare solution architects to lifeguards....
5G is now a standard for seamless industrial operations. But how will different industries be affected by this cellular standard? What innovations are awaiting for humanity once the telecom operators finish the 5G rollout? Read this piece to test the compatibility of 5G with different industries. In 2019, it...
I can try and express the impact of the Pandemic in hundred different sentences, but the summary remains the same – COVID-19 has impacted the world in ways no-one could have imagined or predicted. While many leaders are used to constant change, this disruption caused by COVID-19 is the hallmark...
Disasters like Covid-19 pandemic can wreak havoc on even the biggest of company’s business. Even when your employees and office space are secure, the difference in a time of calamity lies in having a secure and resilient supply chain. In this article, I explore how the direct competition between brands is...
While recognizing your shortcomings is surely a start, what can your organization do to fix the challenges brought about by working on your digital transformation ambition? What is the best way to lead digital business transformation and deliver financial results? Read as I spill the secret for a successful digital...
Business leaders are being forced to rework their strategies and relook at their offerings in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis. Gone are the days when work took place as an established practice. The pandemic has opened multiple pandora’s boxes for every business. As the pandemic’s impact deepens, I take...
Once you start on your digital transformation journey, you need to prepare yourself for a few obstacles on the way. What are some of the challenges that you face when you choose Digital Transformation? Which organizational and technical obstacles can affect your project agility? Find the answers in this list...
Microsoft Fabric’s Defining Moment for Responsible AI Las Vegas became the hub of data transformation as the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference 2025 gathered global data and AI leaders from March 31 to April 2. With 200+ sessions, 13 focused tracks, and 21 hands-on workshops, the event was a powerful signal...
Today, the cloud underpins most new technological disruptions and has proven itself during times of uncertainty with its resiliency, scalability, flexibility, and speed. According to Gartner, Cloud adoption has expanded rapidly - more than 20% CAGR from 2020 to 2025 in total spending. But guess what - total cloud spend...
2020 was the year within which we experienced disruptive changes at a pace and a scale that we could never have imagined. COVID-19 caused disruptions in product supply and demand, in the labor pool, and consumer spending. But it also allowed many sectors to embrace digitalization like never before. Retail...
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted not just every aspect of people's lives but every aspect of the healthcare system. It's preventing healthcare delivery practices from operating at normal business levels, it's disrupting patient access to high-quality medical care, and it's forcing everyone to think about how to continue pushing forward in...
Manufacturers around the globe are becoming more agile and adaptable post-COVID 2020 has been a year that we will not soon forget. This interference has led to the high demand for Innovation, fast delivery, and better user experience. Filled with unimaginable change caused by the pandemic, the manufacturing industry witnessed a...
Financial institutions have embraced digital innovation at a recorded pace to adopt new ways of working, serving the financial needs of customers, and keep the markets performing. Moreover, they have done so while still operating within their control frameworks and regulatory requirements needed to serve in all parts of the...
The IDC forecasts the global edge computing market to reach $250 billion by 2024, with a compounded annual growth of 12.5%. No wonder the industry is talking about Edge Computing. Edge computing is one of the "new revolutionary technologies" that can change organizations wanting to break free from previous limitations of...
According to Gartner, businesses will be spending about $333 billion by the end of 2022 on cloud infrastructure, and according to McKinsey, cloud spending will increase by 47% in the year 2021. These numbers are staggering and certainly depict a very positive picture here. However, cloud consumers need to assess...
Are you looking to apply for Microsoft Azure Certification Exam? Good call! There are multiple important reasons to take this exam. The most compelling ones are the rise of Azure adoption and the increase in Microsoft’s cloud skill demand. Certifications play a vital role in the professional journey. Before taking...
Sustainability has been a buzzword and rightfully so owing to the accelerated global climate crisis. Corporations worldwide acknowledge the urgent need to act on climate change and have even pledged to set climate targets. According to Gartner, Sustainability is defined as “An objective that guides decision making by incorporating economic, social &...
Despite the efficacy and benefits of Cloud-native development, the Mainframe remains a core and valuable enterprise technology for large enterprise customers (especially in Finance, Insurance, Manufacturing, Retail, and Public sector). Maybe because Mainframe offers resiliency, reliability, and trusted security. But it isn’t enough to sustain in today’s disruptive business environment. Faster...
Cloud based systemic optimization is central to the agility of a business in today’s post-COVID world. Whilst the accelerating trend to embrace cloud is good, the key focus should lie in identifying and outmaneuvering any future uncertainties. Nobody expected to be forced to work-from home, neither did some industries expect a volatile...
Decoding Multiple Cloud Perspectives In today’s day and age, business enterprises are finding it difficult to navigate through different complex environments that run across data centers, edge, and multiple clouds. While single cloud still holds relevance, most companies are adopting multi-cloud and hybrid cloud models. However, the terms hybrid cloud...
In current Covid time, the mantra for success includes a healthy mix of innovation with thoughtfulness and corporate social responsibility. As the efforts on Digital Transformation are accelerating, so are the pressures to operate as responsible businesses. More and more CXOs are working on striking the right balance between accelerating...
It was not long back when organizations were asking - Why should we adopt cloud? Cloud Computing has come a long way with significant leaps in terms of scope and adoption. But, on the other hand, the cloud computing needs of businesses are exponentially rising at an accelerated pace. The...
The digital ecosystems of tomorrow—spanning the Agentic Economy, Metaverse, Industrial IoT (IIoT), Synthetic Transactions, and the rise of Offensive AI—demand a radical transformation in how identity is managed. Current solutions like Microsoft Entra, PingIdentity, and Okta are well-suited to today’s enterprise needs, but they are inherently limited when faced with the adversarial, hyper-connected, and dynamic...
The technological world is having a new buzzword that is taking the whole industry by storm - “METAVERSE”. As the name suggests, it is expected to be the “next generation of the internet” which will interlink the physical and digital world. Despite the hype around the metaverse, consumers and even technologists...
AI can already sound convincing. The harder test is: can it get work done—safely—across systems, across modalities, and increasingly in the real world? That changes the unit of value from answers to outcomes, and it forces a different set of enterprise choices: platform architecture, operating discipline, and responsible deployment. Two...
When enterprises talk about “AI security,” the focus often narrows to jailbreaks, prompt injection, and hallucinations. The model is seen as the battleground. That’s understandable—and dangerously incomplete. In reality, most AI breaches don’t start with the model. They begin earlier: a poisoned dataset, a tampered training job, a compromised feature...
Why “LLM-as-a-Judge” is essential, risky—and how to use it right When teams demo AI agents, the storyline is familiar: a clean prompt, a neat answer, and confident nods across the room. But real-world agents aren’t tested in sanitized conditions. They face messy, ambiguous requests, incomplete context, policy constraints, and systems...
Introduction: Why Cloud Is at an Inflection Point Now For a decade, cloud strategy was a migration story: move workloads, modernize the stack, and assume elasticity would smooth out demand. That framing is running out of road. Not because cloud is any less strategic—but because the constraints have become explicit,...
A New Trust Architecture for the AI Enterprise AI transformation is reshaping how enterprises create value — and it has surfaced a fundamental truth: your AI is only as good as your data. As organizations adopt copilots, generative assistants, and reasoning agents, they’re realizing that data quality, protection, and governance...
From Disruption to Antifragile Procurement In April 2025, a new wave of tariff escalations sent a stark message to global enterprises: disruption is no longer a risk—it’s the operating environment. But this time, the shock wasn’t just about cost or logistics. It exposed something deeper: that many procurement functions are...
For decades, Global Capability Centers (GCCs) have served as the backbone of enterprise operations—optimizing costs, delivering IT support, and driving process efficiency. However, today, they stand at a crossroads. The world is shifting to an AI-first economy, where automation, decision intelligence, and predictive analytics drive competitive advantage. Yet, most GCCs...
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