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

Azure Storage tips

As a followup to my blog post Azure Data Lake Store Gen2 is GA, I wanted to give some pointers when using ADLS Gen2 as well as blob storage,...

2020-01-24 (first published: )

427 reads

Blog Post

DevOps for databases: “DataOps”

DevOps, a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and information-technology operations (Ops), has become a very popular way to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide continuous delivery of...

2020-01-16 (first published: )

1,173 reads

Blog Post

My latest presentations

Just wanted to make everyone aware of my latest presentations that I recently uploaded. Details below. I also have a list of all my presentations with slide decks here.   Azure...

2019-12-04

37 reads

Blog Post

Microsoft Ignite Announcements

Microsoft Ignite has always announced many new products and new product features, and this year was no exception. Many exciting announcements, and below I list the major data platform...

2019-11-13 (first published: )

716 reads

Blog Post

Databricks Delta Lake

Introduced in April 2019, Databricks Delta Lake is, in short, a transactional storage layer that runs on top of cloud storage such as Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2...

2019-10-25 (first published: )

902 reads

Blogs

Query Intelligence in SQL Server 2025: What Developers Need to Know

By

When Microsoft announced SQL Server 2025, I was curious about what would truly change...

Finding and Killing Blockers with Redgate AI Tech

By

Redgate has a research arm, called the Foundry, that has been experimenting with AIs...

Back at Small Data SF in 2025

By

Today I’m in San Francisco at Small Data SF 2025. I went to the...

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Forums

Distributed Availability Group Issue / Misunderstanding.

By goodtimecharlie

Not sure if this is a tech mistake I've made or a lack of...

Large posts full of code not allowed anymore?

By Lowell

Several times now, I've seen a post asking for a solution. I've replied, and...

Data > Hype

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Data > Hype

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Slipstream parameters

What parameters are needed to enable a slipstream installation for setup.exe (SQL Server setup)?

See possible answers