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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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Fabric Capacities - DEV/TST/PROD
If you like watch this on the CF YouTube Channel You know you can have more that one capacity? Most of the clients I've interacted with, even since the Power BI capacity days, they have just purchased one big old capacity, and assigned it to every workspace they needed. There have been a few clients that have had multi-region capacities, spun up across the globe for thing likes, billing to specific cost centres and regions and data ownership and sovereignty issues, but for th
Jon Lunn
Mar 16
How Is The AI Hype Translating Into Real Business Value? + Q&A
CF.Webinar - Free to attend knowledge sharing. Artificial intelligence has had another explosive year- more tools, more experimentation, more hype. But how much of that excitement has actually translated into measurable business value and what can leaders expect as we head into 2026? To answer these questions, Cloud Formations surveyed analysts, engineers, data product managers, and AI practitioners working hands-on with data and emerging AI capabilities every day. Their insi
Christine Andrew
Mar 11
Unlocking the Value of AI for Your Business Series: Ep 5 - Why AI Governance is an enabler, not a blocker
With the final episode, we are going to focus on how we safely utilise AI through AI governance without making it a blocker to advancement.
Branden Millward
Mar 2
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
Feb 27
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
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