https://gigilevens.com/ Field notes on data, AI, and the craft of governance — Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Purview, Copilot. en Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gigilevens.com/writing/belated-recap-releases-i-missed-on-sabbatical/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/belated-recap-releases-i-missed-on-sabbatical/ Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy While I was away, Microsoft held two of the year's biggest data events — FabCon in March, Build in May — and reshaped the roadmap around agents. I read six months of announcements in a weekend so you don't have to. Here's what actually matters, assessed late and on purpose. https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-in-production-governance-patterns-that-actually-hold/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-in-production-governance-patterns-that-actually-hold/ Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy Everyone can stand up a Fabric workspace. Far fewer can run fifty of them without the whole estate turning into a swamp. The topology, capacity, and access patterns I've watched survive contact with production — and the ones that quietly fall apart. https://gigilevens.com/writing/the-governance-debt-behind-every-stalled-ai-project/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/the-governance-debt-behind-every-stalled-ai-project/ Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Data Governance & Compliance The AI pilot that never reaches production usually didn't fail on the model. It failed on ten years of data-governance shortcuts that all came due at once. A field guide to the debt, and how to pay it down without a two-year programme. https://gigilevens.com/writing/back-from-sabbatical-what-im-watching-h2/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/back-from-sabbatical-what-im-watching-h2/ Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy The break ran longer than the itinerary said it would. Now that I'm easing back to the desk, here's the short list of what I'm actually watching in data and AI for the second half of the year — and what I've stopped watching. https://gigilevens.com/writing/stepping-away-for-a-while/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/stepping-away-for-a-while/ Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Craft & Communication A short note before I go quiet: I'm taking an extended break to travel with my family. The blog pauses until the summer — on purpose. https://gigilevens.com/writing/ai-readiness-is-just-data-readiness-with-better-marketing/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/ai-readiness-is-just-data-readiness-with-better-marketing/ Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 AI & Responsible Tech Every organisation wants to be 'AI-ready' this year, and a whole industry has appeared to sell it to them. Strip the branding and the checklist is almost identical to the data-readiness one we've been ignoring for a decade. That's either deflating or liberating, depending on how you take it. https://gigilevens.com/writing/what-13-years-in-data-taught-me-about-hype-cycles/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/what-13-years-in-data-taught-me-about-hype-cycles/ Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Craft & Communication Big data, IoT, digital twins, data lakes, data mesh, the modern data stack, generative AI, agents. Thirteen years and roughly a dozen revolutions in — here's the pattern under all of them, and how I've learned to read a hype cycle from the inside. https://gigilevens.com/writing/ignite-2025-microsoft-discovers-governance/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/ignite-2025-microsoft-discovers-governance/ Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy After two years of agents-everywhere, Ignite 2025 had a different flavour: alongside the 'Frontier Firm' grandeur, Microsoft spent a surprising amount of energy on governance and control. If you've been arguing that the agent era needs foundations, this was the year the keynote agreed with you. https://gigilevens.com/writing/from-the-pipeline-to-the-boardroom-why-the-best-data-advice-comes-from-people-who-built-it/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/from-the-pipeline-to-the-boardroom-why-the-best-data-advice-comes-from-people-who-built-it/ Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Craft & Communication There's a whole industry of data advice given by people who've never built a pipeline, met a production incident, or watched a migration go sideways at 2am. I think that's exactly backwards — and this is the case for advice that's earned at the keyboard first. https://gigilevens.com/writing/microsoft-deep-vendor-neutral-when-i-tell-clients-it-the-wrong-tool/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/microsoft-deep-vendor-neutral-when-i-tell-clients-it-the-wrong-tool/ Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy I've spent my career going deep on the Microsoft data stack. Which is exactly why, when Microsoft isn't the right answer for a client, I'm the person who should say so — and I do. https://gigilevens.com/writing/the-em-dash-was-mine-first/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/the-em-dash-was-mine-first/ Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Craft & Communication Someone told me a paragraph I'd written 'read like ChatGPT' — because of the em dashes. I've been using them since I was a language student, long before the machines learned to. A short defence of good punctuation in a suspicious age. https://gigilevens.com/writing/what-transfers-from-building-to-advising-and-what-doesn/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/what-transfers-from-building-to-advising-and-what-doesn/ Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Craft & Communication Moving from building data systems to advising on them isn't a promotion to a higher plane — some of what made me good at the first is exactly what I have to keep, and some of it actively gets in the way. https://gigilevens.com/writing/build-2025-agents-talking-to-agents-and-a-protocol-that-matters/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/build-2025-agents-talking-to-agents-and-a-protocol-that-matters/ Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy Build 2025 leaned all the way into multi-agent systems — agents delegating to other agents to get work done. The demos were impressive. But the announcement I think actually matters got a fraction of the airtime: a boring-sounding open protocol going GA. https://gigilevens.com/writing/why-not-fully-fabric-yet/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/why-not-fully-fabric-yet/ Fri, 23 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy Fabric is our default for new work — and we've deliberately not moved everything onto it. The discipline of deciding what to keep where, and why 'migrate it all' is rarely the plan. https://gigilevens.com/writing/copilot-usefulness-vs-hype/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/copilot-usefulness-vs-hype/ Sat, 17 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Analytics & BI After a year and a half of Copilot, an honest map of what's genuinely load-bearing, what's a nice convenience, and what's still theatre — plus the one test that sorts them. https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-governance-horror-stories/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-governance-horror-stories/ Fri, 09 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Data Governance & Compliance Three Fabric governance near-disasters — over-shared data, a duplicated 'truth', a runaway capacity — and exactly how each was caught and fixed. Learn from these instead of living them. https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-features-h2-2025-watchlist/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-features-h2-2025-watchlist/ Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy The Fabric features I'm actually watching for the second half of 2025 — the ones that could genuinely change the work, and the ones I'll believe when I see them running. https://gigilevens.com/writing/first-90-days-microsoft-fabric/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/first-90-days-microsoft-fabric/ Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy An honest journal of the first ninety days adopting Microsoft Fabric — the real wins, the surprises the demos never mention, and the bumps worth warning you about before you hit them. https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-sustainability-scorecards-smes/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-sustainability-scorecards-smes/ Fri, 11 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 AI & Responsible Tech What Microsoft's sustainability data tooling can actually track this spring — energy, cost, estimated emissions — and, just as importantly, the things it can't, and you shouldn't pretend it does. https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabcon-2025-onelake-security-finally-grows-up/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabcon-2025-onelake-security-finally-grows-up/ Sun, 06 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Data Governance & Compliance Amid the now-obligatory wall of agent announcements, FabCon 2025 shipped the thing I've quietly wanted for two years: define your security once and have Fabric enforce it across every engine. That's the announcement that actually changes how I'd build. https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-shortcuts-reporting-benefits/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-shortcuts-reporting-benefits/ Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Analytics & BI OneLake shortcuts let you use data where it lives instead of copying it everywhere. Three ways that quietly changed how we deliver reports — reuse, trust, and speed. https://gigilevens.com/writing/azure-analytics-decision-tree-sme/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/azure-analytics-decision-tree-sme/ Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy Fabric-first doesn't mean Fabric-only. A practical decision tree for choosing the right Azure analytics service — including the cases where the honest answer isn't Fabric at all. https://gigilevens.com/writing/ai-ethics-in-fabric-for-smes/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/ai-ethics-in-fabric-for-smes/ Fri, 14 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 AI & Responsible Tech Responsible AI isn't a compliance box you tick after the fact. Here's what ethical Copilot use actually looks like when it's your data and your real decisions on the line. https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-cost-management-governance/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-cost-management-governance/ Wed, 05 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Data Governance & Compliance The cheapest Fabric capacity is the one you're not wasting. Governance isn't the opposite of cost control — done properly, it's the single most effective form of it. https://gigilevens.com/writing/retire-ssis-adf-fabric-migration/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/retire-ssis-adf-fabric-migration/ Sun, 23 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Data Engineering I spent years building SSIS packages by the hundred. Here's my honest blueprint for retiring on-prem SSIS to ADF and Fabric pipelines — and, just as important, what not to carry across. https://gigilevens.com/writing/powerbi-premium-to-fabric-cost-model/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/powerbi-premium-to-fabric-cost-model/ Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy Power BI Premium's capacity SKUs are giving way to Fabric's. Treat it as a like-for-like swap and you'll miss the point — and probably overpay for the privilege. https://gigilevens.com/writing/governance-without-guilt/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/governance-without-guilt/ Thu, 30 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Data Governance & Compliance Most governance dies because it's sold as compliance and red tape. Here's how a lean data team makes stewardship light enough that people actually keep doing it. https://gigilevens.com/writing/compliance-as-a-competitive-edge-the-eu-ai-act-for-boards/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/compliance-as-a-competitive-edge-the-eu-ai-act-for-boards/ Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 AI & Responsible Tech Most boards are treating the EU AI Act as a cost to minimise and a risk to survive. The ones who'll pull ahead are treating it as the opposite — a forcing function that makes them the trustworthy option in a market where trust is about to become scarce and valuable. https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-costs-explained-cu-model/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/fabric-costs-explained-cu-model/ Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy What a Capacity Unit actually is, how smoothing and bursting really work, and how to plan Fabric capacity so the invoice never blindsides you or the board. https://gigilevens.com/writing/7-predictions-for-microsoft-data-and-ai-in-2025/ https://gigilevens.com/writing/7-predictions-for-microsoft-data-and-ai-in-2025/ Wed, 08 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Architecture & Strategy Second year of doing this in the open. Seven specific calls on where Microsoft's data and AI stack goes in 2025 — agents, Fabric, governance, and the AI Act — dated now so December can mark my homework.