Sessions 🗓️
We are very happy to be able to offer you once again an exciting lineup including many new speakers, both from the local community, consisting of MVPs, Microsoft employees and industry leads, who will speak about specific use cases in the industry as well as the latest developments around services in Azure.
Be it real life use cases from Vaudoise, sureVIVE and Sulzer, solving real world problems with Microsoft AI services or deep dives on Azure Governance - these sessions will provide you with insights around Azure and the opportunity to connect with peers and speakers.
The schedule is still subject to change.
⭐️ Azure Sovereign Architecture #
Across Europe and particularly in Switzerland digital sovereignty has become a foundational requirement for our customers. Customers must balance innovation with strict expectations around data protection, legal jurisdiction, operational autonomy, and democratic oversight, while continuing to deliver resilient digital services to citizens.
In this keynote, Microsoft presents its European and Swiss‑relevant approach to digital sovereignty, built around the Microsoft Sovereign Cloud and the EU Data Boundary. Attendees will learn ho to deploy cloud, productivity, and AI workloads while retaining control over data residency, encryption keys, operational access, and governance within EU and Swiss regulatory frameworks such as GDPR, sector‑specific regulations, and national data‑protection laws.
The session explores how sovereign public cloud, sovereign private cloud, and customer‑operated or fully disconnected environments enable a continuum of control suited to European and Swiss customers to sensitive, classified, or mission‑critical workloads.
🙂 RENE RAEBER ⚡️ CTO @ Microsoft Switzerland
⭐️ Time Bombs In Entra ID - How Well Are Your Entra ID Apps Managed? #
Organizations are increasingly overwhelmed by Entra ID applications: what they do, who owns them, and how secrets and certificates are created, stored, and rotated. These gaps often stem from unclear ownership of app objects, which undermines consistent creation, configuration, and credential lifecycle management and can lead to outages or security incidents. Attendees will leave with live‑demo insights and actionable guidance on what to address in their environments — whether they adopt SoftwareOne’s managed service, which extends well beyond native Entra ID capabilities, or build an in‑house solution on their own.
🙂 MARCEL ZEHNER ⚡️ Head of Cloud Services Switzerland @ SoftwareOne | Microsoft Azure MVP & Microsoft Regional Director
⭐️ From concept to a productive application - How AI can support you #
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a futuristic concept but a powerful tool that can transform ideas into productive applications. This session will guide you through the journey of leveraging AI from the initial concept phase to the deployment of a functional and efficient application.
We will explore how AI can enhance your project development by automating complex tasks, providing insights through data analysis, and creating smarter, more responsive applications. Whether you’re a developer, project manager, or business leader, this session will equip you with practical strategies to integrate AI into your workflows, helping you to innovate and stay ahead of the competition.
🙂 JANNIK REINHARD ⚡️ Head AI @ Epic Fusion | Microsoft AI Platform & Security MVP
⭐️ From SCCM to Azure: Multi-Cloud Server Management with Azure Arc & Defender for Cloud #
This session covers how we modernized management for around 1,600 servers across on-prem, Google Cloud, and Azure. It walks through the move from SCCM to Azure-native tools, onboarding servers with Azure Arc, automating updates and monitoring with Update Manager and Monitoring Agent, and strengthening security with Defender for Cloud, including practical lessons from our hybrid and multi-cloud experience.
🙂 ALADIN HODZIC ⚡️ Head of Workplace & Collaboration Services @ Sulzer
⭐️ Subscription Vending at Scale: Governed Self‑Service on Azure #
Stop ticket‑driven cloud governance and empower app teams through governed self‑service !
In this session, we share a practical approach to make application teams autonomous within a governed Azure Landing Zone—by centralizing the guardrails, not the delivery.
We’ll start briefly with the operating model shift (Platform vs. App teams vs. governance/enablement) and what to centralize vs. decentralize to scale sustainably. Then we’ll deep‑dive into Subscription Vending: a concrete, automated self‑service process that provides ready‑to‑use environments with consistent governance and security controls by default. Next, we’ll show how the same foundations extend to Technology Platforms — shared services offered as self‑service with built‑in guardrails, so teams move fast without compromising security. Finally, we’ll share how App Teams leverage Copilot custom skills to keep subscriptions Azure Policy‑compliant with minimal friction.
Takeaways: patterns to scale governed self‑service, a repeatable “vending” model for platforms, and practical ways to make policy compliance developer‑friendly.
🙂 GUILLAUME LACAILLE ⚡️ Cloud Technical Architect & Principal Tech Lead Platform Team @ Vaudoise Assurance
🙂 SYLVAIN RIQUEN ⚡️ Cloud Technical Architect @ Vaudoise Assurance
🙂 GUILLAUME BEAUD ⚡️ Cloud Technical Architect @ Microsoft
⭐️ Building Secure RAG: Enforcing Data Governance with Azure AI Search and Purview Sensitivity Labels #
Are your RAG applications exposing sensitive documents to unauthorized users? Learn how to build enterprise AI that automatically respects your data protection policies using Azure AI Search, Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels, and SharePoint document-level ACLs. We’ll cover query-time enforcement that ensures users only retrieve what they’re authorized to see based on their identity and permissions.
🙂 MARCO GERBER ⚡️ Senior Cloud Engineer @ scopewyse | Microsoft Azure & Foundry MVP
🙂 ALAIN SCHNEITER ⚡️ Solutions Architect @ scopewyse | Microsoft Security MVP
⭐️ Reservations and Savings Plans: What Actually Works in Azure #
Reservations and Savings Plans look simple in theory. Buy commitment, save money.
In real Azure environments, this quickly becomes messy. Changing VM sizes, platform standards, new regions, zone requirements, legacy SKUs, and project driven deployments make commitment planning far more complex than the portal suggests.
This session is a practical deep dive into how Reservations and Savings Plans behave in the real world.
🙂 ROLAND KRUMMENACHER ⚡️ FinOps Expert @ SAMexpert | FinOps Certified Professional
⭐️ Terraforming ClickOps – Turning Portals into Pipelines #
Many Azure related efforts still start with ClickOps: resources are provisioned quickly via the Azure Portal, often under time pressure or during early project phases. While this accelerates initial progress, it usually leaves behind unmanaged technical debt, missing Infrastructure-as-Code, and no clean CI/CD or GitOps foundation.
In this session, we present a pilot solution that aims to systematically bridge this gap.
The idea: We use existing tools to analyze and extract the underlying deployment definitions of portal-created resources and automatically transform them into structured, production-ready Terraform code. This code is then enriched through automated fine-tuning and best-practice alignment, before being embedded into a fully initialized Git-based CI/CD setup – including repositories, pipelines, and deployment workflows.
The result is a repeatable approach to convert “what was clicked” into clean, auditable, and pipeline-driven infrastructure, ready for GitOps and continuous improvement.
In this session, we will cover:
- Why ClickOps remains a reality – and why ignoring it is not an option
- How existing tools and can be used to reverse-engineer portal deployments
- Automated transformation and refinement of generated Terraform templates
- Bootstrapping CI/CD pipelines and repositories from existing environments
- Practical use cases and limitations of this approach
- Where this pilot fits into modern Azure Landing Zone and Platform Engineering strategies
- How this approach can help you in a case of an emergency
This talk is aimed at architects, platform teams, and DevOps engineers who want to turn existing Azure environments into managed, code-driven platforms – without starting from scratch.
🙂 CHRISTIAN BAUMGARTNER ⚡️ Azure Development Lead @ glueckkanja
⭐️ Hybrid AI - Orchestrating Collaboration Between On-Device and Cloud Models #
Cloud-based language models (LLMs) are powerful, but expensive to operate. On-device language models (SLMs) are effectively free to run, but limited. No matter what you choose, you lose, right?
To achieve balance between production-grade reliability and cost efficiency, we must start thinking about “Hybrid AI” architectures - systems that intelligently cascade tasks between fast, local models and deep, cloud-based reasoners.
This session explores the blueprints for these collaborative systems. We will explore latest research patterns on how to implement “divide and conquer” strategies between cloud and local models.
🙂 FILIP W ⚡️ Cloud Solution Architect @ Sonova
⭐️ Goodbye VPN – Let’s Never Meet Again! Hello Global Secure Access! #
VPNs have been the backbone of remote access for decades. but they’re slow, complex, and no longer fit for modern security needs. It’s time to move on. In this session, we’ll explore Microsoft Entra Global Secure Access, the Zero Trust-based successor to VPN, designed for seamless, fast and secure access to both cloud and on-prem resources. We’ll dive into how it improves security, performance and user experience while eliminating the risks and headaches of traditional VPNs. Say goodbye to VPN!
🙂 MARCO SCHMIDT ⚡️ Security Engineer @ GrabX
⭐️ DevOps in Azure: Why Alert Emails are not a Monitoring Strategy #
With 24/7 enterprise cloud applications, the Ops part of DevOps is our top priority. We will walk you through our transformation from inbox-driven incident management to a scalable monitoring and alerting solution. We share the failures and pitfalls we encountered, and how we now leverage Azure’s monitoring capabilities to detect issues earlier, respond faster, and operate with minimal noise.
🙂 ALEXANDER SAMELI ⚡️ Cloud Platform Engineer @ Maison du Software
🙂 DANIEL STEINMANN ⚡️ Cloud Platform Engineer @ Maison du Software
⭐️ 10 reasons why companies fail to adopt generative AI #
10 reasons why companies fail to adopt Generative AI and what to do about it. Generative AI offers enormous potential to make companies more efficient. Employees become more productive, can take more care of customers and are ultimately happier because they have more meaningful tasks. However, we see that many companies are struggling with the implementation. In this session, we will look for the reasons and discuss strategies to make adoption work.
🙂 DAVID SCHNEIDER ⚡️ CTO @ isolutions | Microsoft M365 MVP & Microsoft Regional Director
⭐️ From Chaos to Control: Streamline Azure Policy Management with EPAC #
After enabling Microsoft Defender for Cloud, many of my customers end up with a huge list of recommendations for their Azure environments and have no idea where to start. They know they need to deploy Azure Policies based on these recommendations, but the questions are always the same: How do we start? How do we assign Azure Policies correctly? How do we handle exemptions? And what do all these different policy effects mean? In this deep dive, we will bring structure back using Enterprise Azure Policy as Code (EPAC), a set of PowerShell scripts that automate and standardize policy deployment at scale. During this 90-minute hands-on, follow-along session, you will learn how to get a basic overview of Azure Policies, Policy Sets, Assignments, and Exemptions; configure and deploy Azure Policies, Policy Sets, Assignments, and Exemptions using EPAC; and use operational scripts to simplify ongoing policy management. Bring your laptop and an Azure environment so you can follow along and directly explore the concepts.
🙂 PRATHEEP SINNATHURAI ⚡️ Senior Azure Engineer @ baseVISION | Microsoft Azure MVP
⭐️ Designing reliable Azure Backup architectures: Best Practices, Pitfalls, and real-world Lessons #
Backup is often considered only after an incident occurs. Yet, in cloud environments, resilient backup design must be an intentional part of the infrastructure architecture from day one. Microsoft Azure provides multiple backup services, but choosing the right design and configuring it correctly requires a clear understanding of architecture patterns, operational constraints, and platform limitations.
This technical session focuses on designing and implementing Azure Backup solutions from an infrastructure perspective. We will explore how to build secure, scalable, and operationally reliable backup architectures that align with enterprise requirements and cloud operating models. Beyond basic configuration, the session emphasizes real-world design decisions, governance considerations, and common mistakes that can compromise recoverability.
Using practical examples and real-world deployment scenarios, the session covers: • Core Azure Backup services and how to use them. • Designing Azure Backup services for scale, security, and governance. • Important network, identity, and security considerations. • How to protect IaaS workloads, databases and storage solutions. • Cost optimization and restore strategies. • Common limitations and hidden pitfalls to avoid.
Attendees will gain practical guidance on designing robust Azure backup architectures, avoiding common misconfigurations, and implementing reliable protection strategies that support enterprise-grade recovery objectives and cloud governance requirements.
🙂 STEFAN RAPP ⚡️ Cloud Solution Architect @ Xebia | Microsoft Azure MVP
⭐️ From Idea to Product: Early Lessons in AI-Powered Project Orchestration on Azure and Microsoft Teams #
What does it take to turn an AI idea into a real product on Azure? We share the honest story behind PMEOS, an AI agent that moderates daily Scrums in Microsoft Teams, analyzes Jira data in real time, and delivers decision-ready insights to the project team and stakeholders. We’ll walk through the Azure Landing Zone design, Teams bot development, Azure OpenAI integration, and Jira connector. We’ll share what we learned along the way about security, governance, and establishing a long-term operating & collaboration model. Practical, experience-based, no hype.
🙂 ABDUXUKUR ABDURIXIT ⚡️ Senior Cloud Architect @ Swisscom
🙂 ANDREAS EPPENBERGER ⚡️ Founder & CEO @ AgileAdvant Switzerland
⭐️ Managing the Entra Firewall: Conditional Access Policies #
In an era where security threats are constantly evolving, protecting your organization’s data has never been more critical. Conditional Access Policies in Microsoft Entra provide a robust framework for enhancing security by allowing you to control access to your apps and resources based on specific conditions.
Join us for a deep dive into the world of Conditional Access Policies, where you’ll learn how to leverage this powerful tool to protect your cloud environment effectively. Through real-world examples from the banking, insurance, and governance sectors, we’ll demonstrate how Conditional Access Policies can address industry-specific challenges and compliance requirements. Whether you’re new to Conditional Access or looking to enhance your existing knowledge, this session is designed to equip you with actionable insights and advanced techniques.
🙂 FLAVIO MEYER ⚡️ Public Cloud Engineer @ Inventx AG
🙂 MICHELE BLUM ⚡️ Cloud Engineer @ TurnKey Services AG | Microsoft Certified Trainer
⭐️ Can Microsoft Azure save your life? #
At sureVIVE, we build mission-critical software that helps rescue teams on land, at sea, and in the air respond faster and smarter when every second counts. Our platforms break down silos between rescue organisations and equip responders in the field with the insights they need to act safely, decisively, and together.
In this session, we’ll take you inside real-world rescue operations and show how cloud-native systems built on Microsoft Azure support coordination, resilience, and scale in life-saving missions. You’ll learn how modern Azure services enable secure collaboration, real-time data exchange, and high availability — even under extreme conditions.
Join us to explore how technology, when designed with purpose, can help save lives.
🙂 GEORG HAUZENBERGER ⚡️ CEO @ sureVIVE
🙂 MAURO FERRATELLO ⚡️ CIO @ sureVIVE