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 SQL offerings

There are three Azure SQL products with so many different deployment options, service tiers, and compute tiers that it can get quite confusing when choosing the right option for...

2025-03-03 (first published: )

1,196 reads

Blog Post

Cool AI sites

As I researched and wrote my OpenAI and LLMs blogs (see Introduction to OpenAI and LLMs, Introduction to OpenAI and LLMs – Part 2 and Introduction to OpenAI and...

2025-02-07 (first published: )

673 reads

Blogs

Claude Code Helps Analyze Test Data Manager Log Files

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I had a customer ask about analyzing their Test Data Manager (TDM) usage to...

PowerPoint to HTML with Claude AI

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I had an idea for an animated view of a sales tool, and started...

Don’t Miss Out – SQL Server Query Tuning Fundamentals Starts Next Monday!

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Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...

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When SQL Server Central Went Down

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item When SQL Server Central Went...

The String Distance I

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The String Distance I

How Database Professionals Sent a Million Emails a Day from SQL Server

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item How Database Professionals Sent a...

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Question of the Day

The String Distance I

In SQL Server 2025, what is returned by this code:

SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
Assume preview features are enabled.

See possible answers