Architecting Intelligent Data Platforms
Real-world engineering articles spanning Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure, Databricks, AI engineering, enterprise architecture, analytics performance, cloud data platforms and modern data warehousing.
When Data Becomes the Bottleneck
How SLT misses are often caused by concurrency contention and cross-region latency — not weak data itself.
Read the feature →Fabric • Power BI • Azure
Designing resilient, governed analytics platforms for modern enterprise teams.
Practical, Structured, Enterprise-ready
Knowledge built for architects, engineers and decision-makers across data and cloud.
What I’m Writing About Right Now
Platform Performance
Unpacking query bottlenecks, concurrency issues, cross-region latency, and cost-optimization strategies across cloud data warehouses and lakehouses.
Enterprise Architecture
Designing resilient analytics foundations, Medallion architectures, tenant isolation models, and automated platform governance for modern data teams.
AI & Modern Data Systems
Integrating generative AI and RAG workflows into enterprise data stacks, automated ELT processing, and production-ready intelligent platforms.
Engineering Knowledge from Enterprise Delivery
Real-World Architectural Patterns & Lessons Learned
Insights built from architecting high-throughput data platforms, optimizing complex analytical workloads, and establishing governed cloud infrastructure across enterprise systems.
Scalable Data Platforms
End-to-end design strategies for Microsoft Fabric, Databricks Delta Lake, and multi-cloud analytics environments.
Performance Tuning
Eliminating processing bottlenecks, concurrency contention, and expensive query execution patterns.
Enterprise Governance
Implementing tenant isolation, domain ownership, Medallion architectures, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
AI Platform Integration
Integrating Generative AI and vector search solutions directly into existing enterprise data pipelines.
Looking for tailored platform architectures?
Explore key platform implementations, technical blueprints, and past architecture engagements.
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The DISTKEY That Was Right, and Still Wrong [Read More]
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The Post-Acquisition Assumption Gap
Why a single Product Master change exposed the hidden assumptions behind CDC, SCD, intent capture, and enterprise governance.
The Post-Acquisition Assumption Gap [Read More] -
When Data Becomes the Bottleneck: Unmasking the Real Culprit Behind SLT Misses
We kept blaming the data. Turns out, the data was innocent.
We kept blaming the data. Turns out, the data was innocent. 🔍 [Read More] -
Sample blog post to learn markdown tips
There's lots to learn!
By Bill SmithThis is a demo post to show you how to write blog posts with markdown. I strongly encourage you to take 5 minutes to learn how to write in markdown - it’ll teach you how to transform regular text into bold/italics/tables/etc.I also encourage you to look at the code that... [Read More] -
Flake it till you make it
Excerpt from Soulshaping by Jeff Brown
By Sharon Smith and Barry SimpsonUnder what circumstances should we step off a path? When is it essential that we finish what we start? If I bought a bag of peanuts and had an allergic reaction, no one would fault me if I threw it out. If I ended a relationship with a woman who... [Read More]