Dr. Dani Ljepava

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Dr. Dani is a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft SQL data team responsible for product development of flagship Azure SQL Managed Instance PaaS service. His areas of expertise include hybrid environments, high availability, intelligence, automatic tuning, monitoring, backup and restore, migrations, Arc enabled SQL Server and UX. Dani has also worked on delivering data mobility features for on-prem. SQL Servers 2016-2022, and SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). His experience brings in more than 15+ years of product innovation worldwide starting from Silicon Valley start-ups innovating Internet technologies to enterprise innovation in the intelligent cloud space.

Sessions for 2026

Advancing the Role of SQL Server DBA in the Era of AI: Becoming an Azure SQL DBA

This session will guide you through the journey of evolving your DBA role from managing on-premises SQL Server databases to becoming Azure SQL DBA in the era of AI. You will learn which responsibilities to retain, which to share with Microsoft, and how to use the freed up time to build cloud and AI skills. We will cover Azure SQL architecture across key areas such as high availability, BCDR, backup and restore, performance, monitoring, security, compliance, and connectivity, and map them directly to traditional SQL Server DBA responsibilities. You will also learn how to leverage Copilot and AI tools in Azure, SSMS, and Azure Arc, and how Azure services like Fabric and Microsoft Copilot for Azure AI can significantly boost DBA productivity.

Previous Sessions

Return ticket from SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server – One-Click Reverse Migration and DR

The demo showcases new capabilities of setting up hybrid link from SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server 2022, reverse migrating online, setting up transparent connection routing, and more. You can decide if your primary is either Azure SQL Managed Instance or SQL Server. Use it a Disaster Recovery solution, or for offloading R/O workloads on the secondary. Learn how to take advantage of the best integrated hybrid experience between SQL Server and SQL Managed Instance.

Discover what's new in Azure SQL Managed Instance through an exciting Demo Party!

Let us review the latest and the greatest investment that Microsoft has made into the Azure SQL Managed Instance, the product that serve as the best target for the existing SQL Server migration into Azure PaaS.

Advancing the DBA's Role in the Cloud: In the Cockpit of Azure SQL Managed Instance

Join us to learn how DBA role has evolved from on-premises SQL Server DBA to Azure SQL DBA and what does it mean to you. You will learn how existing on-premises DBA responsibilities map to new DBA role in Azure, what are the new shared responsibilities in Azure, and opportunities for skill development helping you become Azure SQL DBA superstar.

Modern models of managing database fleets in Azure PaaS.

Discover how Azure PaaS offerings can help you improve the overall management of SaaS applications, virtualize your environment and improve the overall management of the solutions at scale.

Azure SQL MI End-to-end Demo Party for DBAs and Devs

Join us for a pure, demo-driven journey of a dozen incredible features for Azure SQL Managed Instance showing you the greatest and latest innovations enabling Database Administrators and Developers to achieve more. Whether you’re a DBA, Azure Administrator, Developer, Business Intelligence developer, or of course any other data professional, these demos will show how you can achieve more with the exciting features that are available to you. Some of the topics we will cover are hybrid scenarios, performance and scale, application compatibility, workload modernization, compliance, data mobility/migration & business continuity/disaster recovery - and several more - in this fast-paced, demo-only session.

The Ultimate Freedom of Movement with SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Managed Instance

In this session we’ll deep-dive into the link feature, a revolutionary new hybrid capability bridging the SQL Server and Managed Instance that provides the ultimate freedom of movement between the two. The feature provides never-before possible hybrid connectivity and near real-time database replication between SQL Servers 2016-2022 and Managed Instance, including industry’s first bidirectional data movement and online failover (Disaster Recovery) between SQL Server 2022 and SQL Managed Instance. You don’t even need to migrate to the cloud to use it – remain running on your existing SQL Server and use the modern Azure services by offloading R/O workloads and analytics to the cloud. When ready to migrate, use it as the best possible minimum downtime migration option in Azure. Need to move back from Azure to SQL Server on-premises, or anywhere else? No problem, use it all in reverse and replicate your online and near real-time from Managed Instance back to SQL Server 2022.

There and back again: SQL Server 2022 <-> Managed Instance

In just 20 minutes you will see a demo of bidirectional database failover between SQL Server 2022 and Managed Instance, using the link feature. The feature provides never-before possible hybrid connectivity and near real-time database replication between SQL Servers 2016-2022 and Managed Instance, including industry’s first bidirectional data movement and online failover (Disaster Recovery) between SQL Server 2022 and SQL Managed Instance Need to move back from Azure to SQL Server on-premises, or anywhere else? No problem, use it all in reverse and replicate your online and near real-time from Managed Instance back to SQL Server 2022.

10 Cool Things about SQL MI

In just 20 minutes We are going to entertain you with 10 cool things about Azure SQL Managed Instance that you might not know, but that can be extremely useful