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Home→Published 2013 → August

Monthly Archives: August 2013

Resume hoarders

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 29, 2013 by James SerraJanuary 31, 2014

Unfortunately in my line of work as a consultant, I am contacted far too often by resume hoarders, who are “recruiters” who sole job is to collect resumes, with no attempt at all to try to match the right person … Continue reading →

Posted in Consulting, SQLServerPedia Syndication | Leave a reply

Winner of the worst recruiter of the year!

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 27, 2013 by James SerraJanuary 24, 2014

Every week I get a bunch of emails from recruiters about jobs that I am not qualified for (see Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence).  Some obviously use keyword searches and just spam any person who has that … Continue reading →

Posted in Consulting, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 19 Replies

Recruiters, pay rates, and client budgets

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 22, 2013 by James SerraAugust 29, 2013

If a recruiter sends me a job description, the first question I ask is, “What is the pay rate”.  If it is not in the ballpark of what I make, I shut the conversation down as continuing would just be … Continue reading →

Posted in Consulting, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 2 Replies

A placement firm’s “guaranteed” replacement

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 20, 2013 by James SerraAugust 7, 2013

I have heard large placement firms say they are better than smaller firms because “They offer the client a guaranteed replacement in case the resource doesn’t work out or leaves project early “.  I asked my recruiter friend about this. … Continue reading →

Posted in Consulting, SQLServerPedia Syndication | Leave a reply

SQL Server 2014: AlwaysOn

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 15, 2013 by James SerraSeptember 26, 2013

AlwaysOn was introduced in SQL Server 2012, and there are some enhancements in SQL Server 2014: Now support up to 8 secondary replicas that remain available for reads at all times, even in the presence of network failures.  Failover Cluster Instances … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server 2014, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 1 Reply

Dear recruiter: I will not help you do your job for free

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 13, 2013 by James SerraJanuary 13, 2021

I literally get 10-15 calls and emails a week from recruiters asking if I can help them to find a data warehouse or business intelligence person for an opening at a client they have.  And another 10-15 emails for positions … Continue reading →

Posted in Consulting, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 10 Replies

Best Practices to Deliver BI Solutions

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 8, 2013 by James SerraSeptember 4, 2013

If your company is planning to build a data warehouse or BI solution (see Why you need Business Intelligence), you need to be aware that BI projects have high failure rates.  Gartner says between 70% to 80% of corporate business intelligence … Continue reading →

Posted in Business Intelligence, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 1 Reply

Presentations slides for Best Practices to Deliver BI Solutions

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 7, 2013 by James SerraAugust 6, 2013

Thanks to everyone who attended my session “Best Practices to Deliver BI Solutions” for Pragmatic Works.  The abstract for my session is below and the recording will be available soon here.  I hope I provided some good info for you. Here … Continue reading →

Posted in Business Intelligence, Presentation, Session, SQLServerPedia Syndication | Leave a reply

Why use a SSAS cube?

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 6, 2013 by James SerraMay 16, 2017

What are the advantages of using SSAS Cubes over a regular data warehouse for reporting?  Note I’m not asking why report on a data warehouse instead of a OLTP database. which is covered at Why You Need a Data Warehouse.  Think … Continue reading →

Posted in SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSAS | 5 Replies

Best Practices to Deliver BI Solutions Presentation

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 5, 2013 by James SerraAugust 6, 2013

I will be presenting a brand new session entitled “Best Practices to Deliver BI Solutions” tomorrow, August 6th, at 11am EST for Pragmatic Works.  You can register here.  The abstract for my session is below.  I hope you can make … Continue reading →

Posted in Business Intelligence, Presentation, Session, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 2 Replies

Presentation Slides for Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 2, 2013 by James SerraAugust 6, 2013

Thanks to everyone who attended my session “Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture” for 24 hours of PASS, PASS Summit Preview.  The abstract is below and the recording of the session is available here.  I hope you enjoyed it! Here is the PowerPoint … Continue reading →

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

PerformancePoint: Show Details greyed out

James Serra's Blog Posted on August 1, 2013 by James SerraAugust 28, 2013

In PerformancePoint, when using a analytic grid or chart or a scorecard, if you are not able to use the “Show Details” option (a drillthrough action) because it is grayed out, one or more of the following could be the … Continue reading →

Posted in PerformancePoint, SQLServerPedia Syndication | Leave a reply

About James Serra

I work at Microsoft as a big data and data warehousing solution architect where I have been for most of the last ten years.  Prior to that I was an independent consultant working as a Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence architect and developer. I am a prior SQL Server MVP with over 35 years of IT experience. The views and opinions on this blog are mine and not that of Microsoft. Check out my book Deciphering Data Architectures: Choosing Between a Modern Data Warehouse, Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse, and Data Mesh. 

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