About James Serra
I am an independent consultant with the title of Business Intelligence/Data Warehouse/Master Data Management Architect and Developer, specializing in the Microsoft SQL Server BI stack.Need some help?
If you are looking for help in building a data warehouse or end-to-end BI solution, send me an email and we can discuss your needs. I am available for short or long-term projects.Follow Me!
Subscribe by email
-
Recent Posts
- Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence
- Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture
- Levels in IT consultancy
- Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture Presentation
- Business Intelligence Maturity Assessment
- IT recruiter’s response
- SQL Server 2014!
- Power View for Multidimensional Models Released
- Ralph Kimball Books
- Business Intelligence Requirements Gathering
Recent Comments
- James Serra on Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence
- @chuckboycejr on Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence
- James Serra on Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence
- Rizwan on Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence
- James Serra on Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence
Archives
- June 2013 (7)
- May 2013 (10)
- April 2013 (10)
- March 2013 (10)
- February 2013 (10)
- January 2013 (8)
- December 2012 (10)
- November 2012 (11)
- October 2012 (10)
- September 2012 (9)
- August 2012 (4)
- July 2012 (9)
- June 2012 (7)
- May 2012 (6)
- April 2012 (10)
- March 2012 (15)
- February 2012 (14)
- January 2012 (13)
- December 2011 (12)
- November 2011 (12)
- October 2011 (14)
- September 2011 (14)
- August 2011 (15)
- July 2011 (15)
- June 2011 (20)
- May 2011 (13)
- April 2011 (3)
Categories
- Active Directory
- Antivirus
- Appliance
- BISM
- Blog
- Business Intelligence
- Career
- Certification
- Columnstore indexes
- Consulting
- Data warehouse
- DAX
- Dimensions
- DNS
- DQS
- ETL
- Excel
- Fast Track
- Fuzzy Lookup
- Introduction
- KPI
- MDS/MDM
- MDX
- Microsoft
- PASS
- PDW
- PerformancePoint
- Power View/Project Crescent
- PowerPivot
- Presentation
- ProClarity
- Quick Tip
- Report Builder
- Security
- Session
- SharePoint
- SharePoint 2013
- SQL Azure
- SQL Server
- SQL Server 2012
- SQL Server 2014
- SQLServerPedia Syndication
- SSAS
- SSDT/Juneau
- SSIS
- SSMS
- SSRS
- Tabular
- Team Foundation Server
- Tools
- Training
- Videos
- Virtualization
- Visio
- Visual Studio 2008
- Visual Studio 2010
- Visual Studio 2012
- Visual Studio vNext
- White Paper
- Windows 8
Top Posts & Pages
- Low-rate recruiters - The bane of my existence
- Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture
- SQL Server 2014!
- Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) Explained
- Data Warehouse Architecture - Kimball and Inmon methodologies
- SQL Server 2012: Multidimensional vs tabular
- Improving cube processing time
- Create SQL Server scripts with Visio 2010
- SSDT - Installation confusion
Favorite Blogs
Meta
Rockstar Blogger
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Miss SQLBits 9? No problem, all videos are online
All the videos for this popular conference are online or will be soon (48 of them). Take a look at the recorded sessions at http://sqlbits.com/content/Event9. All are free to watch! The one’s on my list to watch (because I’m interested in SQL Server … Continue reading
Posted in SQLServerPedia Syndication, Videos
Leave a comment
SQL Server Analysis Services Performance Guide published
Another must read white-paper: Analysis Services 2008 R2 Performance Guide. This white paper describes how business intelligence developers can apply query and processing performance-tuning techniques to their Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services OLAP solutions. It applies to SQL Server … Continue reading
Posted in SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSAS, White Paper
Leave a comment
Miss TechEd Australia 2011? No problem, all videos are online
As you may know, the TechEd in the U.S. is not the only one. There have been many all over the world, and it 2011 there have been one’s in New Zealand, Australia, and next month in Russia. The Australia and New … Continue reading
Posted in SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Videos
1 Comment
What is Microsoft TAP and RDP?
Technology Adoption Program (TAP) and Rapid Deployment Program (RDP) are ways for Microsoft to get early feedback on new products or product updates as well as give important customers a heads-up on what Microsoft is up to. Participation is by invitation only (usually … Continue reading
Posted in Microsoft, SQLServerPedia Syndication
2 Comments
SSIS – Can’t Enable/Disable within Data Flow Tab
This is my biggest gripe with SSIS: I have a data flow task, and within that I’m pulling data from multiple sources into multiple destinations, with a few performing data flow transformations. While testing, I want to disable some of … Continue reading
Posted in SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSIS
1 Comment
Microsoft and HP’s Database Consolidation Appliance
Microsoft and HP have announced another appliance, called the Database Consolidation Appliance (DBC) (see my blog about the other two appliances). In short, this appliance consolidates databases into a single, virtual environment. In more detail: Many customers continue to struggle with … Continue reading
Posted in Appliance, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication
Leave a comment
Performance tips for SSAS
Over the past few years I have developed a list of ways to improve performance in SSAS and in two of the tools that use it: ProClarity and PerformancePoint. Below are those performance tips along with other important items to be … Continue reading
Posted in PerformancePoint, ProClarity, SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSAS
2 Comments
Formula engine and storage engine in SSAS
In SSAS, to improve query performance, it’s important to understand what happens inside analysis services when a query is run. Analysis Services is made up of two engines: Formula Engine (FE) – It is single-threaded. It processes the MDX queries, determines what data is needed … Continue reading
Posted in SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSAS
4 Comments
SQL Server 2012 and other PASS announcements
Some announcements and notes from SQL PASS Summit 2011, going on this week: It was announced that the official name of the SQL Server “Denali” product is SQL Server 2012 and will be released in the first half of the year 2012. There … Continue reading
Error configuration in SSAS
In SSAS, there is an Error Configuration object that is central to the management of data integrity errors. The following picture shows the ErrorConfiguration properties for a cube: There are numerous objects where you can specify the error configuration via … Continue reading
Posted in SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSAS
Leave a comment
