Fabiano Amorim

Fabiano Amorim is a Microsoft Data Platform most valuable professional (MVP) since 2011. With over two decades of experience, Fabiano is well known in the database community for his performance tuning abilities and the many conference speaking engagements around the world. He writes articles for Simple-Talk (https://www.simple-talk.com/author/fabiano-amorim/) and his blog is on http://blogfabiano.com.

Fabiano Amorim's Sessions

Man vs Machine: Adaptive query processing and auto tuningSQLBits 2018

Query optimizer is getting smart, computers are taking DBAs jobs. In this session MVP Fabiano Amorim will talk about new “automatic” optimizations on SQL 2017. Adaptive query processing, auto tuning and few other features added into the product.

Writing better code with windowing functions on SQL 2012SQLBits 2012

Once upon a time in a kingdom of darkness… SQL Server 2012 + Windows Functions… and they lived happily ever after… This session describes the improvements in Windows Functions T-SQL support from SQL Server 2005 through SQL Server 2012.

Future-Proofing SQL Server: High Availability, Performance, and Key Innovations from 2022 to 2025SQLBits 2026

Join this session to explore key advancements in SQL Server 2022 and a preview of 2025, including Contained AGs, Distributed AG enhancements, and PSP Optimization—plus practical strategies to boost reliability, performance, and readiness for the future.

Hacking MSSQL on Cloud. All of them. How I became sysadmin on Azure, AWS, GCP and Alibaba.SQLBits 2026

It began as a small security research project on a local SQL Server, one vulnerability quickly led much further. That initial finding enabled privilege escalation across multiple managed platforms, including Azure SQL Database, GCP CloudSQL for SQL Server, Amazon RDS, and Alibaba ApsaraDB. In this presentation, I'll demonstrate how an attacker can escalate from a low-privileged user to sysadmin in cloud-managed SQL Server environments. I'll also explain why these flaws existed, how to defend against similar attack paths, and how each cloud provider responded.

SQL Server’s hidden backdoor: How a backup restore can be used to bypass cloud securitySQLBits 2026

Cloud databases promise isolation and safety, but what if the threat lives inside SQL Server itself? This session reveals how tampered artifacts hidden in a .bak can survive restore, execute with elevated context, and leak data across any database in a On-Prem, AWS RDS, GCP Cloud SQL or Alibaba RDS. See a live demo, learn why audits miss it, and understand the hidden risks of treating backups as inherently safe.

Your MSSQL environment is vulnerable and I can prove itSQLBits 2026

SQL Server environments are often assumed to be secure by default. This session challenges that belief by demonstrating how a low-privileged login can be leveraged to compromise an entire MSSQL environment. Using real-world scenarios, I’ll show how design flaws and overlooked features enable privilege escalation, data exposure, and full administrative control and how to prevent it.