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

The Microsoft Power Platform

The Microsoft Power Platform consists of three products: Power BI, PowerApps, and Microsoft Flow. I find customers are confused on the use cases of these products and how they...

2019-07-08 (first published: )

311 reads

Blog Post

Common Data Model

The Common Data Model (CDM) is a shared data model that is a place to keep all common data to be shared between applications and data sources.  Another way...

2019-06-20 (first published: )

1,743 reads

Blog Post

Azure Data Explorer

Azure Data Explorer (ADX) was announced as generally available on Feb 7th.  In short, ADX is a fully managed data analytics service for near real-time analysis on large volumes...

2019-03-14

291 reads

Blogs

Shifting Mindsets: Why FinOps is Essential for Cloud Efficiency

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As a DevOps practitioner, I’ve always focused on performance, scalability, and automation. But as...

March 2026 SQL Server Security Updates

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On Patch Tuesday, in addition to OS and Office security patches, Microsoft also released...

How Fabric Mirroring Transformed with SQL Server 2025

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When mirroring was first released for Azure SQL Database, it used Change Data Capture...

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Forums

XACT_ABORT being set to ON by web services

By zoggling

We have two "identical" instances of an ASP.NET web service (or so I have...

OPENQUERY Flexibility

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item OPENQUERY Flexibility

A Full Shutdown

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Full Shutdown

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Question of the Day

OPENQUERY Flexibility

Which of these are valid OPENQUERY() uses?

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