James works at Microsoft as a big data and data warehousing solution architect where he has been for most of the last ten 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 35 years of IT experience. Check out his book Deciphering Data Architectures: Choosing Between a Modern Data Warehouse, Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse, and Data Mesh.
I will be presenting the session “Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture” today at 11am CST for the PASS DBA Fundamentals Virtual Chapter. Info about watching the presentation online is here, and the abstract for my session is below. I hope … Continue reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
In SQL Server 2012, a new feature was added called Columnstore Indexes that resulted in huge query performance improvements. In SQL Server 2014, there have been two major improvements on this feature: Clustered: They have enhanced the columnstore to be a pure … Continue reading →
I will be presenting the session “Building an Effective Data Warehouse Architecture” this Wednesday, July 31st, at 10pm EST for the 24 hours of PASS, PASS Summit Preview. Info about the event, and the abstract for my session, is below. … Continue reading →
Microsoft has posted ALL the session videos for TechEd Europe 2013 and they are available for free! Some great videos on the latest products and versions. Check them out here. There are four videos on SQL Server 2014: Microsoft SQL Server … Continue reading →
What looks to be the biggest and best new feature in SQL Server 2014 is called the “In-memory OLTP Engine”, code-name: Hekaton. In short, Hekaton is a SQL Server In-memory OLTP Engine. Hekaton provides in-memory OLTP capabilities built into core … Continue reading →
Introduction You likely have heard about data warehousing, but are unsure exactly what it is and if your company needs one. I will attempt to help you to fully understand what a data warehouse can do and the reasons to … Continue reading →
Why do companies use placement firms to find IT contractors instead of using internal recruiters? Who better to answer that question that a recruiter who has been in the business for many years and now has his own small placement … Continue reading →
FYI: Geoflow (see Geoflow Preview for Excel 2013) is now called Power Map, and Data Explorer (see Microsoft Data Explorer) is now called Power Query. Microsoft Power Query for Excel has reached General Availability and is now available for download. More info: “Data … Continue reading →