Conor Cunningham

Partner Software Architect, SQL Server Engine-Microsoft

Conor Cunningham is a Microsoft Architect and he knows a great deal about data, storage, and everything Microsoft. He and Rob go way back and were even roommates for a couple of years during Rob’s Microsoft days. There’s quite a bit of history between Rob, Tom, and Conor. A history that fosters an insightful discussion about data and a little bit of busting chops!

We discuss quite a bit including:

• What a Microsoft Architect does
• Organized storage and Data lakes
• Conor’s celebrity status
• How the Query Store was almost killed, but Conor didn’t give up on it
• Remote presentations and working remotely
• And so much more!

Episode Timeline:

• 2:25 – Conor the Celebrity
• 4:40 – Conor The Architect, and his unusually organized kitchen
• 9:40 – Speaking of meticulous organization, we talk Organized Storage and the transition from row and column models to….something else
• 16:10 – Data Shape and Data Volume in selecting databases, and are the old dusty data warehouses being replaced
• 21:50 – Curves and Cliffs in warehousing, some avenues are easier and cheaper than others
• 25:25 – The Data lake has changed the analysis process
• 29:50 – Rob pushes Conor into a long-awaited breakthrough, some failed projects from their past, and how the name “SharePoint” was almost given to a different product
• 34:55 – Let’s go back to Conor The Celebrity, some good stories from Tom’s Microsoft MVP days, and how Conor had no fear of the salty MVPs
• 46:50 – The “Query Store” isn’t a place you go to purchase queries
• 55:00 – Keeping up with the competition: AWS and Babelfish
• 1:02:00 – The (ORIGINAL) Windows Phone debacle, and Windows Media PCs
• 1:06:20 – Doing presentations in the COVID-19 era and the future of the remote workplace at Microsoft
• 1:14:30 – Redmond’s new buildings, and getting caught in the infinite loop that was the old Redmond facility design