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”.

Blog Post

Data Mesh defined

The two latest trends in emerging data platform architectures are the Data Lakehouse (the subject of my last blog Data Lakehouse defined), and the Data Mesh, the subject of...

2021-02-16

12 reads

Blog Post

Data Lakehouse defined

As a follow-up to my blog Data Lakehouse & Synapse, I wanted to talk about the various definitions I am seeing about what a data lakehouse is, including a...

2021-02-02 (first published: )

596 reads

Blog Post

Syncing SQL databases

There are various ways to keep SQL Server databases and SQL Database/SQL Managed Instance (SQL MI) databases in-sync asynchronously that I will discuss in this blog. The main use...

2021-01-05 (first published: )

856 reads

Blog Post

Syncing SQL databases

There are various ways to keep SQL Server databases and SQL Database/SQL Managed Instance (SQL MI) databases in-sync asynchronously that I will discuss in this blog. The main use...

2021-01-04

23 reads

Blogs

Rolling Back a Broken Release

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We had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward...

A bespoke reporting solution doesn’t have to cost the earth

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You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...

Presenting with Visual Studio Code

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A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...

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Forums

Lots of FKs

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Lots of FKs

Real-time On-prem SQL Server Data in Excel – Over the Internet

By Cláudio Tereso

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Real-time On-prem SQL Server Data...

Can You Let Go of Determinism

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Can You Let Go of...

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Question of the Day

Lots of FKs

In SQL Server 2025, what are the most outgoing and incoming FK references a table can have?

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