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 FAQ

Power BI has become hugely popular and I find common questions about functionality and features, so I thought I would put in this blog some of those questions with...

2020-06-23 (first published: )

633 reads

Blog Post

Monitoring Power BI

There are a number of options for monitoring Power BI that I wanted to mention: Performance analyzer: Find out how each of your report elements, such as visuals and...

2020-06-02 (first published: )

770 reads

Blog Post

Query Acceleration for ADLS

Just announced is Query Acceleration for Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (ADLS) as well as Blob Storage. This is a new capability for ADLS that enables applications and analytics...

2020-05-20 (first published: )

456 reads

Blog Post

Power BI Security

A common topic I have been discussing recently with customers is the security around Power BI. Basically, how to prevent users seeing data they shouldn’t. So I’ll discuss the...

2020-03-19 (first published: )

647 reads

Blog Post

Power BI Sharing

There are many ways to share the dashboards, reports, and datasets that you create in Power BI. Below I’ll compare all such options (there are twelve!). First make sure...

2020-03-16

122 reads

Blog Post

SQL Database MI benefits

As I see a huge number of customers migrating their on-prem databases to the Azure cloud, the main question they ask is about whether they should go with an...

2020-03-10 (first published: )

908 reads

Blogs

Asking for Help Isn’t a Weakness

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During COVID, I attended training on software/enterprise architecture given by Mark Richards. One of...

The Proof of the Backup Is in the Pudding

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For me, the objective is straightforward: have a backup strategy that is reliable, understandable,...

T-SQL Tuesday #204 – Are blogs still relevant?

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Note: This post is the invitation for T-SQL Tuesday #204 on November 3rd, 2026....

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Forums

SQL Server Vector Support II

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Server Vector Support II

Great Things

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Great Things

Troubleshooting Slow Queries That Already Have an Index

By Imran2629

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Troubleshooting Slow Queries That Already...

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Question of the Day

SQL Server Vector Support II

With regard to SQL Server 2025's Vector support, what is an embedding?

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