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...

2026-06-10 (first published: )

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Blogs

Measuring RAG Solutions: Are We Retrieving the Right Information?

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A RAG pipeline that answers questions in the demo is not the same thing...

Advice I Like: Lots of Ideas

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“A multitude of bad ideas is necessary for one good idea” – from Excellent...

Building a DBA Agent for Your SQL Server Estate with MCP

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Yesterday I gave a talk for MSSQLTips called “Building a DBA Agent for Your...

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Question of the Day

Adding new column with DEFAULT

Which number will the COUNT() return after executing the following statements:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS #test;
CREATE TABLE #test (id INT)
INSERT INTO #test (id)
SELECT *
  FROM GENERATE_SERIES(1, 3) AS gs
;

ALTER TABLE #test ADD flag BIT CONSTRAINT DF_#test_flag DEFAULT 0;
go
UPDATE #test SET flag = 0 WHERE id = 1
UPDATE #test SET flag = 1 WHERE id = 2

INSERT INTO #test (id) VALUES (4)

SELECT COUNT(*)
  FROM #test AS t
 WHERE flag = 0
 

See possible answers