AI and Context, Fast Focus

DPT03 Fast Focus: A DBA's Guide to LLM's

11/17/2026

1:30pm - 1:50pm

Level: Introductory

Bradley Ball

Sr. Azure Engineer for the Azure FastTrack CXP PG

Microsoft

I'm a DBA. The job I'm doing at Microsoft right now is not a DBA job, but at my core I'm always looking at things from a DBA perspective. This session will be a quick overview of the history that has delivered us to this point in time with LLM's. We will also cover why we should care, how we can use them to do our job, and how we will actually use them in our role as DBA's aka vectorized workloads for AI enhanced search or RAG, Retrieval Augmentation Generation, patterns. Lastly, what models exist, how do we choose which one to use, & why do you need to pay attention to the deprecation date!

You will learn:

  • A brief history of AI to LLM's
  • How to use LLM's in DBA work via VS Code or SSMS with GitHub Copilot
  • The basics about Vectorized AI Search & RAG Patterns