James Serra

James works at Microsoft as a big data and data warehousing solution architect where he has been for most of the last nine years. He is a thought leader in the use and application of Big Data and advanced analytics, including data architectures such as the modern data warehouse, data lakehouse, data fabric, and data mesh. Previously he was an independent consultant working as a Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence architect and developer. He is a prior SQL Server MVP with over 35 years of IT experience. He is a popular blogger (JamesSerra.com) and speaker, having presented at dozens of major events including SQLBits, PASS Summit, Data Summit and the Enterprise Data World conference. He is the author of the book “Deciphering Data Architectures: Choosing Between a Modern Data Warehouse, Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse, and Data Mesh”.

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Blogs

SQL, MDX, DAX – the languages of data

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Ramblings of a retired data architect Let me start by saying that I have...

Setting PK Names in Redgate Data Modeler

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A customer was testing Redgate Data Modeler and complained that it auto-generated PK names....

Flyway Tips: AI Deployment Script Descriptions

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With the AI push being everywhere, Redgate is no exception. We’ve been getting requests,...

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Connecting Power BI to SSAS and effective user not working

By Paul Hernández

Hi everyone, Below is a consolidated summary of what we validated Architecture & data...

High Availability setup - has anyone seen this method?

By Paul Lancaster

Hi all, I recently moved to a new employer who have their HA setup...

Semantic Search in SQL Server 2025

By Deepam Ghosh

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Semantic Search in SQL Server...

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Question of the Day

Encoding URLs

I have this data in a SQL Server 2025 table: 

CREATE TABLE Response
( ResponseID INT NOT NULL CONSTRAINT ResponsePK PRIMARY KEY
, ResponseVal VARBINARY(5000)
)
GO
If I want to get a value from this table that I can add to a URL in a browser, which of these code items produces a result I can use?

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