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

Power BI and a Star Schema

I sometimes get asked from customers if they should use a star schema or should they use one large single table/flatfile for their dataset in Power BI. The answer...

2021-03-05 (first published: )

904 reads

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...

2021-02-19 (first published: )

791 reads

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

2 reads

Blogs

How to find free space in Azure PosgreSQL

By

I wanted to figure out how big (or approximately how big) my dump file...

T-SQL Tuesday #180: Good enough is perfect Roundup

By

This month, I prompted bloggers to discuss whether good enough is perfect. Thank you to all...

Using SQL Compare with Read-only Access

By

Recently a customer asked if SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare can be used...

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Forums

Compare rows within the same table

By SQL Bee

I have a table. Structure in script below. I have to compare and see...

Microsoft Recommendations for Update Stats?

By Brandie Tarvin

I have an application team that is insisting on daily (and for some, weekly)...

how can i tell if our db2 driver is ms or ibm or other?

By stan

i see this in the definition of a linked server on our wh sql...

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Question of the Day

A Strange Result

What does this code return in SSMS 20 from SQL Server 2019?

select '|' + CHAR(0)+'abc' + '|';

See possible answers