Pre-Con Data Saturday Rheinland 2026

Join us for the 84th edition of Pre-Con Data Saturday in Rheinland 2026 - a day filled with all things data!

Pre-Conference at Data Saturday #84 – Unlocking the Power of Data Platforms

Join us for an exciting full-day pre-conference ahead of Data Saturday #84, where we deep dive into three hands-on, expert-led workshops designed to boost your skills in modern data platforms and performance tuning:

Learning PostgreSQL as a SQL Server User
More and more organizations are hosting their data on multiple platforms. One of the fastest growing relational platforms is PostgreSQL. While the root behaviors of tables and relationships between them are the same, there remains a very distinct set of differences between PostgreSQL and other platforms.

If you've been a SQL Server user, developer, DBA, and your organization is now adding PostgreSQL to the mix, you may have a somewhat steep learning curve ahead. This session is meant to reduce the size of that hill you're going to climb as you add PostgreSQL skills. We'll cover the common aspects of both platforms, the subtle differences between the two, and, of course, some of the unique behaviors to separates PostgreSQL from SQL Server. You'll get a good introduction to the core behaviors of PostgreSQL and the appropriate language to use when working with that data platform. All of this is designed to flatten out that learning curve and get you started supporting PostgreSQL just as well as you currently support SQL Server.
Speaker: Grant Fritchey

Data Engineering mit KI: Von "Vibe Coding" zu zuverlässigem, KI-gesteuertem Engineering
Für Data Engineers ist die größte Hürde, um wirklich von GenAI zu profitieren, nicht der Preis der Modelle oder fehlende Tools. Es ist vielmehr der Mangel an zuverlässigen Workflows. Zu viele von uns stecken in einer Endlosschleife aus „Prompt-and-Pray“ oder „Vibe Coding“ fest – wir kopieren Schemata in ein Chatfenster und hoffen, dass das Modell eine SQL-Query oder ein PySpark-Skript ausspuckt, das nicht klammheimlich falsche Joins halluziniert.

Um echte Geschwindigkeit auf die Straße zu bringen, brauchen wir ein Framework, das KI von einer netten Spielerei in einen sicheren, verlässlichen Pair-Programmer für komplexe Daten-Ökosysteme verwandelt.

In diesem praxisnahen Workshop lassen wir den Hype hinter uns und erarbeiten eine praktische Blaupause für KI-gesteuertes Data Engineering. Wir gehen Schritt für Schritt durch, wie ihr den Einsatz von KI in euren täglichen Aufgaben standardisiert, Coding-Richtlinien über Agents durchsetzt, riesige Datenkontexte (wie Schemata und State-Files) managt und die harte Arbeit beim Aufbau und der Wartung eines Data Lakehouse automatisiert.

Speaker: Sascha Dittmann

From Zero to Secure — Introduction into Docker
Containers are everywhere — but how do you go from "docker run hello-world" to a production-grade, secure deployment? In this hands-on workshop, you'll build and deploy a Python Flask web server from scratch using Docker, progressing step by step from the basics to a fully secured, load-balanced setup with TLS.

We start with Docker fundamentals — images, containers, Dockerfiles, and the build/tag/push workflow. You'll write your first Dockerfile, then iterate on it: applying multi-stage builds to shrink image size, dropping root privileges, crafting a proper .dockerignore, and following security best practices that prevent common pitfalls. From there, we move into multi-container territory using Docker Compose — connecting your
Flask app with other services, understanding Docker networking, and enabling container-to-container communication via user-defined bridge networks. The final stretch brings it all together: deploying your application behind a reverse proxy and load balancer with automatic TLS termination. You'll also set up a local development environment with hot-reloading and bind mounts that makes iterating on code fast and
painless.
Speaker: Marta Sokolowska, Jan Nordhoff

Whether you're focused on secure cloud integration, query tuning, or data engineering at scale—this pre-con has something for you. Don’t miss this chance to level up before the big day!