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

Understanding Fabric Ontology

What problem is Fabric Ontology trying to solve? For years, most data conversations have started with tables. We ask where the data lives, what columns are available, how the...

2026-05-22 (first published: )

99 reads

Blog Post

Understanding Fabric MCP

Model Context Protocol, or MCP, is one of those technical ideas that sounds more complicated than it really is. The easiest way to think about it is this: MCP...

2026-05-20 (first published: )

412 reads

Blogs

From SQL Saturday to Day of Data

By

A behind-the-scenes look at Day of Data Jacksonville 2026, the transition from SQL Saturday,...

PostgreSQL 18 Finally Makes BUFFERS the Default. Here Is Why That Matters

By

You run EXPLAIN ANALYZE on a slow query, stare at the plan, and something...

A New Word: La Guadière

By

la guadière – n. a glint of goodness you notice in something that you...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

non ascii columns in a utf-8 .txt file

By stan

hi, we couldnt get our upstream data source developers to supply what is sometimes...

PolyBase Trace Flags

By Leo.Miller

Are there any good articles on all the trace flags that are enabled on...

The Data Model Matters

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Data Model Matters

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Running SQLCMD I

I run the SQLCMD utility as follows:

lcmd -S localhost -E
I then type this (the 1> is the prompt):
1> select @@version go
If I hit enter, what happens?

See possible answers