u/JohnSavill

Every C‑level conversation I’ve had this quarter has centered on one theme: Can we trust the outputs of generative AI?
Not just the models, but the data feeding them.

In this video, I break down one of the most important (and overlooked) dimensions of AI trust:
creating a complete, virtualized view of your enterprise data estate.
I also touch on how to ensure AI solutions are fit for purpose and safe through capabilities like evaluations.

A unified data virtualization layer gives you a single, AI‑enabled interface to your data; no matter where it lives, how it’s structured, or which system owns it.
This is how organizations move from siloed insights to intelligence at enterprise scale.

🔗 Video: https://youtu.be/J08rfw4UBfY

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

00:31 - AI and the new pressure on data

04:50 - Silos of data

07:55 - Data virtualization layer

09:10 - Fabric OneLake

13:39 - Single namespace and workspaces

14:26 - Shortcuts

15:55 - Types of data

18:54 - Shortcuts outside of OneLake

20:32 - Managed transformations

21:43 - Mirroring

23:38 - Single virtualized enterprise data layer

24:40 - Governance

25:42 - Semantic models

27:47 - Intelligence for AI

28:38 - Summary

This week's Azure Update is up!

YouTube - https://youtu.be/wdYy3sLnfHA

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/azure-weekly-update-8th-may-2026-john-savill-mcwac/

Azure Functions consumption durable task scheduler (00:50) - The consumption SKU charges on for actions dispatched which makes it great for any event-driven type activity. It now has support for the durable task scheduler which provides the storage provider to enable fault tolerant code execution including retries and persistent state. This means its great for distributed transactions, multi-agent orchestration, data processing and more. You use it with Durable Functions.
Azure Reserved VM size retirements (01:29) - Starting July 1, 2026, purchases and renewals will no longer be available for one-year Azure Reserved VM Instances for the Av2, Amv2, Bv1, D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Ls, and Lsv2 VM series. Additionally, one-year and three-year reserved instances (RIs) for the Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, and Esv3 VM series will no longer be available for purchase and renewal.
Bulk Azure Backup VM restore (02:11) - You can now restore up to 100 VMs in a single operation which makes it easier to support large-scale recovery scenarios.
Dl D E v7 SKUs (02:30) - New Intel Xeon 6 processors for both General Purpose and memory-optimized. Generally 20% better compute performance. Dl (low memory) is 2:1 ratio, GP 4:1 and then memory optimized 8:1. These are great for web and regular app servers, databases etc.
UK egress datacenter changes (03:21) - For Europe there is free egress and at-cost data transfer for transfer from Azure to another service provider. There are some changes coming for UK related to the scoping of networks, services and transfer windows. You should verify your use and contact support where needed.
ACS AlternateId cleanup (03:51) - For those using Multiple Number Assignment Azure Communication Services feature for Teams Phone it is important to NOT use this AlternateId for non valid values. This can cause failures. Therefore its use should be ceased for all customers.
App GW for Containers add-on for AKS Automatic (04:36) - AKS Automatic can be easily deploy and use Application Gateway for Containers via the add-on removing manual steps and getting the best managed ingress and load balancing solution.
Elastic SAN AVS Gen2 private cloud (05:14) - Azure Elastic SAN provides an iSCSI target built on native Azure Storage. Azure VMWare Solution Gen 2 private clouds (which live in Azure virtual networks which simplify networking and a lot more) can now use Azure Elastic SAN for storage and because of the vnet integration no ExpressRoute gateway so no throughput limitations caused by connectivity related components and instead can maximize the Elastic SAN. This includes the use of the AV64 SKUs.
Elastic SAN single volume snapshot (06:29) - You can now create point-in-time snapshots of individual volumes and they are delta based so only the changes are stored optimizing space. These are co-located on the source SAN so can be restored very quickly.
ANF backup enabled by default (06:57) - New volumes will now have backup enabled by default when creating new volumes but you can opt-out if desired.
Premium SSD v2 in 3 AZs Japan West (07:11) - The v2 with separate capacity, IOPS and throughput is available in 3 AZs Japan West.
Cosmos DB spherical quantization (07:31) - Spherical quantization is an advanced vector compression technique designed to preserve search quality while improving vector indexing and search performance.
Cosmos DB shell (08:03) - Cosmos DB Shell is an open-source bash-like command-line interface enabling easy developer interaction with Cosmos DB database and provides a local shell MCP Server enabling easy local AI assistant interaction via the shell. You can navigate your database hierarchy like a file system and easily run SQL commands. Available for Windows, macOS and Linux.
SQL MI BC right-size memory (08:51) - SQL MI Business Critical now has flexible memory which enables you to customize the vCPU to memory ratio to better meet your needs and pay for the memory you actually need. This has been available for non-BC for a while, and this modification is an online operation.
GPT-chat-latest in Foundry (09:22) - This is GPT-5.5 Instant and designed for chat, retrieval, and tool‑integrated workflows, it enables systems that stay grounded in enterprise data, take action across tools, and handle end‑to‑end interactions more reliably. It has big gains in factual accuracy, tool calling and response efficiency. When the app needs multi-turn conversations with good instruction following with external tool use this is a great fit.
Azure Document Intelligence v3 API retirement (10:01) - Use the v4 before the retirement.
GPT realtime models (10:11) - Three new realtime models. GPT-realtime-translate, GPT-realtime-whisper which enable live, multilingual capabilities with whisper transcribing speech and then translate for multi-lingual abilities. Also GPT-realtime-2 is a reasoning speech to speech model with adjustable levels of reasoning which means it can pause while working through the problem before speaking. The ability to realtime translate can be key to supporting many types of live event and support assistants with the reasoning ability of realtime-2 being used for more complex voice interactions.

AI-901 Study Cram

Creating an Enterprise Data Virtualization Layer with Fabric's OneLake

Azure Weekly Update - 8th May 2026