James works at Microsoft as a big data and data warehousing solution architect where he has been for most of the last eleven years. Before that he was an independent consultant working as a Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence architect and developer. He is a prior SQL Server MVP with over 40 years of IT experience. Check out his book Deciphering Data Architectures: Choosing Between a Modern Data Warehouse, Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse, and Data Mesh.
Advanced Analytics, or Business Analytics, refers to future-oriented analysis that can be used to help drive changes and improvements in business practices. It is made up of four phases: Descriptive Analytics: What is generally referred to as “business intelligence”, this … Continue reading →
Ever wonder about Microsoft’s product roadmap? With Microsoft rapidly releases products and services, they realized the need to provide better transparency. Well wonder no more! They have released the Cloud Platform Roadmap Site (visit here). Roadmaps are given for: Microsoft … Continue reading →
Long has the question been asked “Which Microsoft tool do I use for dashboards?”. SSRS, Excel, PowerView, Report Builder and PerformancePoint are all candidates. But that has all changed, and the future of dashboarding is here: Power BI Designer [since renamed … Continue reading →
The following blog describes how to use certain cloud-based Power BI for Office 365 products (Power View and Q&A) on a Power BI Site that will reference data on-premises. To do this you will use certain on-premise Power BI products … Continue reading →
The Analytics Platform System (APS), which is a renaming of the Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW), has just released an appliance update (AU3), which is sort of like a service pack, except that it includes many new features. These appliance updates are made available frequently, … Continue reading →
The traditional data warehouse has served us well for many years, but new trends are causing it to break in four different ways: data growth, fast query expectations from users, non-relational/unstructured data, and cloud-born data. How can you prevent this … Continue reading →
The Azure Data Factory (ADF) is a service designed to allow developers to integrate disparate data sources. It is a platform somewhat like SSIS in the cloud to manage the data you have both on-prem and in the cloud. It … Continue reading →
I have previously blogged about the Fast Track Data Warehouse, a reference configuration optimized for data warehousing (see Microsoft SQL Server Reference Architecture and Appliances). That was version 3.0 of the reference configuration that was for SQL Server 2008 R2. Released a couple … Continue reading →
Should you move your data to the cloud? That is the question. The answer is not simple. While moving data to the cloud is all the rage, the fact is a large majority of the Fortune 500 companies are not … Continue reading →
I was fortunate to be a technical reviewer for a new book, SQL Server 2014 Business Intelligence Development by Reza Rad. Below is the abstract. It’s a great book for those of you trying to learn about all the various … Continue reading →
The Analytics Platform System (APS), which is a renaming of the Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW), has recently released an appliance update (AU2), which is sort of like a service pack, except that it includes many new features. These appliance updates are made available frequently, … Continue reading →
The Analytics Platform System (APS), which is a renaming of the Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW), has a lot of obvious benefits, which I discuss here. For those of you who find your database is getting too big, or becoming too … Continue reading →
You might be reading a lot about Cloud computing and see three acronyms frequently: IaaS, PaaS, Saas. Cloud providers offer their services according to these three fundamental models: Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) This is the most basic model which is essentially your … Continue reading →
Thanks to everyone who attended my session “Modern Data Warehousing” at the Central New Jersey SQL User Group yesterday. The abstract for my session is below. I hope you enjoyed it! Here is the PowerPoint presentation: Modern Data Warehousing Modern Data Warehousing … Continue reading →
I will be presenting the session “Modern Data Warehousing” tomorrow (Wednesday, August 13th) at the Central New Jersey SQL User Group at 6:30pm. The abstract for my session is below. I hope you can make it! Modern Data Warehousing The traditional … Continue reading →
All the videos for the sessions at 24 Hours of PASS (Spring 2014) are available for free. Check the session schedule for a complete list. Also, many of the PASS virtual chapters have recordings of their meetings online. Enjoy!
Continue reading →When doing ETL, you have the choice of using T-SQL or SSIS (see When to use T-SQL or SSIS for ETL). If you decide T-SQL is the way to go and you just want to execute a bunch of T-SQL statements (individually … Continue reading →
I have a lot of books on my shelves dealing with business intelligence, data warehousing, master data management, and consulting. Below are my favorites: Data Warehouse Books: Ralph Kimball Books Building the Data Warehouse Corporate Information Factory DW 2.0 Mastering … Continue reading →
All PASS Business Analytics Conference 2014 recordings are now available. If you purchased the online sessions, to view, log on to your myPASS account, enter your activation code, and watch the sessions from myRecordings. You can also purchase all recordings on a USB … Continue reading →
Thanks to everyone who attended my session “Modern Data Warehousing” for Pragmatic Works last Thursday. The abstract for my session is below and the recording is available here. I hope you enjoyed it. Here is the PowerPoint presentation: Modern Data Warehousing Modern Data Warehousing The … Continue reading →