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!
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Recent Posts
- Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence
- Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture
- Levels in IT consultancy
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- SQL Server 2014!
- Power View for Multidimensional Models Released
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Top Posts & Pages
- Low-rate recruiters - The bane of my existence
- Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) Explained
- SQL Server 2014!
- Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture
- Data Warehouse Architecture - Kimball and Inmon methodologies
- SQL Server 2012: Multidimensional vs tabular
- Create SQL Server scripts with Visio 2010
- Installing Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2012
- Performance tips for SSAS
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Monthly Archives: February 2012
SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): Extended Events
Extended Events is a general event-handling system for performance monitoring that was introduced in SQL Server 2008. It has a highly scalable and highly configurable architecture that allows users to collect as much or as little information as is necessary to troubleshoot or identify a … Continue reading
End-User Microsoft BI Tools – Clearing up the confusion
Given two types of underlying data sources (a data warehouse and a OLAP cube built from the data warehouse) there are many different possible presentation layers (client tools) that serve different user communities with varying usage profiles. There is a … Continue reading
SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): Spatial Features
SQL Server 2012 introduces several significant enhancements to spatial types, such as support for new subtypes of circular arcs, new and updated methods and aggregates for all subtypes, improved precision, and updates to the geography type. More info: New Spatial … Continue reading
SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): FileTable
FileTable is a new feature in SQL Server 2012 that is built on top of SQL Server FILESTREAM technology, which allows BLOB data to be stored as individual files separate from a database’s data files. Interactions with the FileStream files … Continue reading
Posted in SQL Server 2012, SQLServerPedia Syndication
2 Comments
Please vote for my SQLRally session
I’m hoping to do a presentation at SQLRally in Dallas on May 10-11, but I need your help! There is a Community Vote for the remaining 20 sessions, so I would greatly appreciate it if you would go to http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2012/dallas/CommunityChoice.aspx and vote … Continue reading
Posted in Presentation, Session, SQLServerPedia Syndication
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SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): PowerPivot
Version 2 of PowerPivot (download) is being made available with SQL Server 2012. There are many new features, and my top 5 are: Diagram View – Instead of looking at the defined relationships in a list format, v2 allows you to view the … Continue reading
Posted in PowerPivot, SQL Server 2012, SQLServerPedia Syndication
1 Comment
SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): Microsoft StreamInsight
Microsoft StreamInsight, first introduced in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, is a way to effectively analyze large amounts of event data streaming in from multiple sources. You can derive insights from critical information in near real-time. StreamInsight is a platform … Continue reading
Posted in SQL Server 2012, SQLServerPedia Syndication
2 Comments
SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): T-SQL Enhancements
SQL Server 2012 has a number of new T-SQL features. Listed below are all of the new features, along with the best links I have found that describe each feature: WITH RESULT SETS, OFFSET AND FETCH, THROW, SEQUENCE: See New T-SQL … Continue reading
Posted in SQL Server 2012, SQLServerPedia Syndication
2 Comments
SQL Server 2012 (“Denali”): Contained Databases
A problem that has plagued SQL Server for a long time is that a database is not very portable. Sure, you can backup or detach a database and restore or attach it elsewhere, but when you do that, you are … Continue reading
Posted in SQL Server 2012, SQLServerPedia Syndication
6 Comments
SQL Azure
SQL Azure is a cloud-based service from Microsoft that uses a special version of SQL Server as its backend. SQL Azure helps to ease provisioning and deployment of multiple databases. Developers do not have to install, setup, patch or manage any … Continue reading
Posted in SQL Azure, SQLServerPedia Syndication
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