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Insights on Data, Platforms and AI
Practical insight on data, platforms and AI from people who deliver them.
The Cloud Formations blog focuses on what actually works in modern data programmes. We share lessons from real delivery, platform design decisions, and applied AI use cases, grounded in hands-on experience across strategy and execution.
Expect clear perspectives, technical depth where it matters, and content designed to help you make better decisions, not just follow trends.
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Unlocking the Value of AI for Your Business Series: Ep 4 - AI Agents and the Rise of Agentic AI
The next iteration of AI is moving away from hard coded models and towards AI Agents and how they interact and intergrate with humans.
Branden Millward
6 hours ago
Unlocking the Value of AI for Your Business Series: Ep 3 - Explainable AI Making AI Transparent, Trustworthy, and Understandable
Now that we understand what is possible with AI, we should also understand how it generates the outputs and be able to explain any decisions that are made with AI.
Branden Millward
Feb 18
Unlocking The Value Of AI For Your Business - Where To Start + Q&A
CF.Webinar - Free to attend knowledge sharing. Join C loud Formations, Brand en Millward who will be delivering our next CF.Webinar on unlocking the value of AI for your business - where to start. Reserve your spot today to gain insights from industry experts and take part in a live Q&A with our team. Online via Microsoft Teams Thursday 26th February 2026 - 12:30pm to 1:30pm GMT Session Overview The session will cover the fundamentals of AI and its key terminology. It will ex
Christine Andrew
Feb 11
Unlocking the Value of AI for Your Business Series: Ep 2 - Key Considerations of AI
It is important to understand the various aspects of AI (Artificial Intelligence) before jumping in unaware, as the lack of planning early in a project can result in costly mistakes further down the line. This blog covers a brief overview of these considerations.
Branden Millward
Feb 9
Unlocking the Value of AI for Your Business Series: Ep 1 - Starting with the Basics
For many organisations, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can seem complex, expensive, and out of reach. Yet, when approached with the right strategy, AI can become one of the most powerful enablers of growth and innovation.
Branden Millward
Feb 5
Fabric - Materialized Lake Views in your pipelines
Since the announcement of Materialised Lake Views for Microsoft Fabric , I've finally had some time to have a good look at them, what they are, were they could fit in our ETL process and, as a bonus, I've used them in a project recently. Don't want to read? Check out the YouTube version : What are Materialised Lake Views? So first off, what are they? They are basically a table object that is based on a query. (Yes I know they are called 'Views'… more on that later) So like a
Jon Lunn
Jan 27
Cloud Formations: A Fresh Identity for Outcome-Led Data Consulting
Our Story: From a Sunny Beer Garden to Cloud Formations Once upon a time, in a sleepy village pub, two families met in a sunny beer garden. With drinks and conversation flowing, the husbands quickly realised their careers were forged in the same Microsoft data-driven trenches-first as developers, later as consultants. As life progressed, through community events and shared interests, those interactions became more frequent. Each meeting sparked deeper conversations about tec
Cloud Formations
Jan 19
Metadata Driven Orchestration With Microsoft Fabric + Q&A
Webinar - Free to attend knowledge sharing. Join Cloud Formations, Matt Collins who will be delivering our final instalment for metadata month with a deep dive into Metadata-Driven Orchestration in Fabric, showing how a metadata framework can make your processes smarter, faster, and easier to scale. Reserve your spot today to gain insights from industry experts and take part in a live Q&A with our team. Online via Microsoft Teams Thursday 29th January 2026 - 12:30pm to 1:30p
Christine Andrew
Jan 12
Fabric - How to check if a data pipeline is running?
How do you check if a pipeline is running, not from the monitor, but from your Data Pipelines? Maybe you're like me and you have a Data Pipeline process that needs to check if some other pipeline else is running. In my case I have to check if a process is running due to Delta tables liking you to have one process writing to them, otherwise you can get concurrency issues as two items are trying to update the same delta table metadata file. Those tricky metadata items like th
Jon Lunn
Jan 7
Celebrating Innovation: Our Co-Founder Paul Andrew Joins the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2026 Judging Panel
Join us in celebrating innovation as our co-founder Paul Andrew joins the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2026 judging panel. Discover the impact of the Microsoft Imagine Cup today!
Cloud Formations
Dec 15, 2025
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