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 IoT Central

This is a short blog to give you a high-level overview on a product called Azure IoT Central. I saw this fairly new Azure product (GA Sept 2018) in...

2022-04-11 (first published: )

170 reads

Blog Post

Microsoft industry clouds

In talking with Microsoft customers, I have found that most are not aware that Microsoft has created industry clouds (see Microsoft Industry Clouds). So I wanted to use this...

2022-01-28 (first published: )

160 reads

Blog Post

Distributed SQL

A very brief history of databases for online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads starts with relational databases (RDBMS), which worked well for many years. With the advent of the internet and...

2022-01-07 (first published: )

537 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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Forums

Why the following cmds in sequence do not work

By hoa.nguyen 64423

I need to delete rows from both the temporal main and history tables. The...

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

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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.

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