Presenting Contained Availability Groups at UK’s SQLBits Conference 2026 in April

My session “Contained Availability Groups – Best Practices from Real-World Projects” was selected for the upcoming SQLBits Conference , taking place in Wales, UK, this April 2026.

SQLBits is the largest independent Microsoft Data Platform, AI, and BI conference in Europe—and arguably the most fun—with a different theme each year. This year’s theme is “Cartoon”.

Contained Availability Groups have become one of my favorite enhancements in SQL Server 2022, mainly because of the simplified maintenance experience they offer customers. (Here you find an introduction int that feature: Why you should use SQL Server contained availability groups to save time – and why consultants may not tell you about them ) That said, they do come with a few gotchas that every DBA should be aware of—especially around security and deployment. With SQL Server 2025, we’re getting some welcome improvements, and hopefully a future CU will also address the main challenge around vendor deployment routines.

If you support SQL Server high-availability deployments, this session should be particularly interesting for you.

You can find the full session description here:

https://sqlbits.com/sessions/event2026/Contained_Availability_Groups__Best_Practices_from_Real-World_Projects

Beyond the honor of speaking, this event gives me a great reason to visit one of my former home countries. – Some of you may remember that when I was asked to join the Microsoft Data Security team, one of my conditions was being allowed to work from the UK during the one-year waiting period for my specialized knowledge worker-visa (L1B) (You can read more about my move here: How I emigrated to the US during Brexit and the Pandemic – Phase 1: UK, warming up)

I’m really looking forward to meeting many of my UK-based friends at this opportunity!

CU in April,

Andreas