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Belgium 01-10-2026 Squad Only Virtual english

Letting Teams Build Safely with Low-Code, No-Code, and AI Tools. ; How to enable business-led development while keeping security, architecture, and support under control.

Low-code, no-code, and AI tools are giving business teams more ability to build solutions themselves. The challenge is setting the right boundaries before fast local solutions become important operational assets. Three pressure points need attention. - Boundaries must be clear: teams need to know what they can build alone and what requires IT, security, or architecture review. - Supportability matters when a quick solution becomes business-critical. - Risk control remains necessary around data access, compliance, security, process dependency, and maintenance. The working question is simple: how do we enable business-led development while keeping security, ownership, and support under control? If you are trying to enable this safely, let’s compare approaches with others facing the same balance.

Belgium 06-10-2026 All Members Physical english

The Token Trap: Reclaiming Control of Enterprise AI

As enterprise AI transitions from experimental Proofs of Concept (POCs) into real implementations, digital leaders are encountering a shared challenge: consumption-based public cloud token billing models do not fit neatly into traditional IT budgeting. Daily token consumption can rise unexpectedly, pushing expenses through the roof while arbitrary caps quickly kill momentum for innovation. For many CIOs, this raises an open strategic question: How do we keep costs under control while further stimulating innovation? During this interactive CIONET roundtable, we will explore among peers how to navigate AI tokenomics. Rather than treating public cloud LLMs as the default path, we will investigate how different execution environments, ranging from hybrid cloud setups and targeted on-premise models to specialised edge hardware, can help balance cost with performance. This session is intentionally designed as an open peer-to-peer exchange; a space to compare notes, challenge current ways of working and architectural setups, and discuss practical approaches to building predictable, scalable AI models.

Belgium 08-10-2026 All Members Physical english

The Permanent (R)evolution

Every large organisation has been through a major transformation, and most through several. The word transformation is misleading because it suggests a beginning and an end. But organisations that do well are the ones that have given up on the idea of arriving and realise that constant change has become the new norm, and missing a single cycle leaves you permanently behind. This evening, two leaders will share how they think about this, coming from opposite directions. John Porter led Telenet through a sustained period of reinvention spanning the pandemic, a full reorganisation into tribes, M&A, and a shift to a performance driven culture. Along the way, the IT department was dissolved and technology was embedded inside autonomous tribes that run as small businesses. There is no CIO at Telenet. It is Telenet Group’s purpose to become a digital-first, customer-centric organisation. To deliver on this ambition, it has embarked on a transformation journey built on three pillars: (i) the implementation of a scaled-agile operating model (organisation), (ii) the acceleration of digitisation and automation underpinned by optimised IT systems, platforms, and strategic technology partnerships (digitisation), and (iii) a performance leadership culture focused on accountability, ownership, and a change mindset (culture). Kris Vervaet, on the other hand, has just become CIO at KBC, the bank whose mobile app has been ranked best in the world three times and whose AI assistant Kate now handles 70% of customer queries on its own. But Kris is no ordinary CIO: he ran DPG Media Belgium as CEO, and KBC went looking for someone who has led transformation rather than someone who manages technology. So while one organisation got rid of the CIO role, the other reinvented it, and both are thriving. The conversation will range across organisational and IT redesign, the rise of digital-first customer experience, the impact of AI on how every business is run, and the harder questions of culture, talent and leadership. The question for every leader in the room is what that tells you about your own role, your own operating model, and the pace at which you are prepared to keep evolving.

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ABN AMRO modernizes its infrastructure in 9 months with Datometry and Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Dutch bank ABN AMRO was looking to move business-critical workloads from Teradata to Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. As a result of leaving its legacy vendor, ABN AMRO realized significant scaling advantages, gained flexibility, and laid the foundation for a comprehensive cloud strategy.

ABN AMRO is one of the largest retail banks in the Netherlands, with more than 5.2 million retail clients and 20,000 employees worldwide, operating in 12 different countries. Its wealth management exceeds €200 billion in assets under management, serving more than 100,000 clients.

ABN AMRO wanted to move its workloads from its legacy system, Teradata, to Azure Synapse Analytics but did not find the conventional approach of code converters appealing. ABN AMRO found that code converters have limitations in converting legacy code with poorly documented business logic. Often, manual intervention to extract, modify, and reinsert the code is required.

A further complication was the nature of the business process served by the application. Several applications served sophisticated risk models that are subject to stringent regulation. These models are certified by a regulatory body, and changes would require a time-intensive certification process before putting them into production.

Finally, the deadlines were tight. The switchover from the legacy system to Azure Synapse Analytics needed to be performed with as little downtime as possible for business analysts and other internal customers. As much as the migration was a technical problem, it was also a formidable challenge in risk management and execution.

Database virtualization leads the way

ABN AMRO turned to Microsoft partner Datometry. Based in San Francisco, California, Datometry specializes in bringing virtualization to the database stack. Its Hyper-Q platform, available in the Azure Marketplace, lets enterprises move from Teradata or Oracle Exadata to Azure Synapse Analytics without headaches.

Before the formal project kickoff, ABN AMRO had a complete blueprint of its workloads through Datometry qInsight. The qInsight report provided the team with a detailed analysis, identifying any potential challenges up-front. Equipped with this knowledge, the bank embarked on the implementation knowing there would be no major surprises.

Instead of modifying applications, ABN AMRO leveraged Datometry Hyper-Q. The Hyper-Q platform translates SQL and API calls in real time. Through Hyper-Q, existing applications work directly with Azure Synapse Analytics. The operation is fully transparent, making changes to application code unnecessary.

Hyper-Q enabled ABN AMRO to operate with a small tactical team. By drawing on strong in-house talent, the bank did not need to augment its staff significantly. Being able to keep the size of the team small was critical to maintain agility, and it also contributed to the overall cost savings.

Liberated from having to rewrite a large body of applications, the ABN AMRO team took the opportunity to selectively adjust a few individual applications. These modifications would play specifically to the strengths of Azure Synapse Analytics.

Meeting deadlines while avoiding downtime

ABN AMRO completed the project on an aggressive timeline. In nine months, the entire workload was migrated off the Teradata system and ABN AMRO was able to decommission its Teradata appliance.

Mike Waas, CEO of Datometry, said, “ABN AMRO just set a record for moving from Teradata to Azure Synapse: In only nine months, they pulled off a full migration that seemed completely impossible. Accomplishing all that, while maintaining full compliance with strict regulations that prevented any changes to the SQL text, is a phenomenal feat.”

After the migration, both the legacy system and the future stack were operated for several months side by side. This enabled business users to validate data and functionality using their original applications.

Finally, when it came time to switch over, ABN AMRO did not schedule explicit downtime. Instead, the company moved its business users to Azure Synapse Analytics, the new core data platform, completely seamlessly.

“With Datometry we have delivered a successful transformation,” said Marcel Kramer, Head of Data Engineering at ABN AMRO. “We moved our mission-critical workloads from Teradata to Azure Synapse seamlessly. With a legacy of more than 15 years of business logic, this is a remarkable result.”

The foundation for a comprehensive cloud strategy

By migrating on a short timeline, ABN AMRO realized considerable savings. The bank was able to decommission its legacy system, avoiding a costly renewal and potentially a refresh of the hardware that would have come due. Leaving the applications intact saved time and effort for rewrites and upheld regulatory requirements. Additionally, it eliminated the undue risk and room for error any modifications would have caused, ensuring the ABN AMRO team was in full control of any risk during the project.

Through Datometry's virtualization, ABN AMRO elegantly solved its migration challenge, and at a fraction of the cost of a conventional migration. Now on Azure Synapse Analytics, ABN AMRO has a strong foundation for the future.

ABN AMRO just set a record for moving from Teradata to Azure Synapse: In only nine months, they pulled off a full migration that seemed completely impossible. Accomplishing all that, while maintaining full compliance with strict regulations that prevented any changes to the SQL text, is a phenomenal feat.

Mike Waas: CEO

Datometry

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