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

Microsoft Purview FAQ

I get many of the same questions about Microsoft Purview, so I wanted to list those common questions here along with their answers. If your question is not answered...

2024-09-23 (first published: )

245 reads

Blog Post

Microsoft Fabric AI Skill

Are you ready to have conversations with your data? Announced in public preview within Microsoft Fabric is AI Skill, a new capability in Fabric that allows you to build...

2024-09-11 (first published: )

363 reads

Blog Post

Copilot in Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Copilot is an app that uses AI to help you find information, create content, and get things done faster (see What Is Copilot? Microsoft’s AI Assistant Explained).  Copilot is...

2024-07-17 (first published: )

491 reads

Blog Post

Microsoft Fabric shortcuts

I talked about Microsoft Fabric shortcuts in my blog post Microsoft Fabric – the great unifier (where I have updated the picture with the newest supported sources) and wanted...

2024-05-15 (first published: )

425 reads

Blogs

Finding Balance: Things Will Come Up

By

I have a presentation on finding balance in your career that got quite a...

Who Are You Doing It For?

By

But as I've matured over the years, I came to realize that I needed...

Presenting Twice in May 2026

By

I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

How to change the FDLaunch Error log file location

By schleep

The file FDLAUNCHERRORLOG gets created in the default <instance>\MSSQL\Log folder. So far, I've found...

what data type i should use for roversion col and can i use less than greater

By rajemessage 14195

can i use Rowversioncol ( in my database it's synonyme timestamp is used) to...

Radius Latitude Longitude

By HeftSteady

I have a table with latitude longitude in the format.  45.123456 , -111.123456 ,...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

A Fun Computer Quote

Which movie featured this quote?

"All programs have a desire to be useful."
Happy April Fools!

See possible answers