Author Archives: James Serra

About James Serra

James is 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.

Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence

Posted on June 18, 2013 by

There is nothing more annoying to me in my profession than getting calls and emails from recruiters who are looking for senior-level BI people at ridiculously low rates.  A common example: they want someone with 10-years experience in BI to … Continue reading →

Posted in Consulting, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 8 Comments

Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture

Posted on June 14, 2013 by

Thanks to everyone who attended my session “Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture” for Pragmatic Works.  There were over 500 attendees!  The abstract is below and the recording of the session is available here.  I received a ton of questions and I have attempted … Continue reading →

Posted in Data warehouse, Presentation, Session, SQLServerPedia Syndication | Leave a comment

Levels in IT consultancy

Posted on June 13, 2013 by

The Big 5 IT consulting companies (Accenture, Deloitte Consulting, PwC (formerly PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP), KPMG, Ernst & Young) have various titles given to consultants along a career path.  Wikipedia had good descriptions of the titles, and using that and a few other descriptions I … Continue reading →

Posted in Consulting, SQLServerPedia Syndication | Leave a comment

Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture Presentation

Posted on June 12, 2013 by

I will be presenting the session “Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture” this Thursday, June 13th at 11:00am EST for Pragmatic Works.  Below is the abstract.  It will be a remote presentation that you can join online.  Details are here.  I hope you can make … Continue reading →

Posted in Data warehouse, Presentation, Session, SQLServerPedia Syndication | Leave a comment

Business Intelligence Maturity Assessment

Posted on June 11, 2013 by

Do you ever wonder how your business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DW) environment compares to other companies and what steps you should be taking to progress your analytics platform? One of the first steps in any BI project is … Continue reading →

Posted in Business Intelligence, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 2 Comments

IT recruiter’s response

Posted on June 6, 2013 by

I asked a recruiter to check out my blogs about consulting, and his response is below.  He had some good points on billling rates and what recruiters do behind the scenes: I really enjoyed reading over your blog you have … Continue reading →

Posted in Consulting, SQLServerPedia Syndication | Leave a comment

SQL Server 2014!

Posted on June 4, 2013 by

Just when you thought you got a handle on SQL Server 2012, here comes the next version!  SQL Server 2014 was announced yesterday during the TechEd North America 2013 Day 1 Keynote.  It is due to be released in early 2014, shortly … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server 2014, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 1 Comment

Power View for Multidimensional Models Released

Posted on May 31, 2013 by

As a followup to my blog Power View for Multidimensional Models – Preview Available, the final version is now available via SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 4. So you can now create Power View reports against multidimensional models … Continue reading →

Posted in Power View/Project Crescent, SQLServerPedia Syndication | Leave a comment

Ralph Kimball Books

Posted on May 30, 2013 by

If you are involved in Business Intelligence, then the books by Ralph Kimball are required reading: The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit: Practical Techniques for Building Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Systems, Second Edition, 2008, 636 pages (Amazon).  Subject: Implementation guide.  Primary … Continue reading →

Posted in Business Intelligence, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 2 Comments

Business Intelligence Requirements Gathering

Posted on May 28, 2013 by

There are three fundamental steps in building a data warehouse for a BI solution (see Why you need Business Intelligence): Identify the data the users interact with, or would like to interact with, via interviews.  Make sure to determine the … Continue reading →

Posted in Business Intelligence, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 2 Comments