Normally you use SCOPE_IDENTITY to return the IDENTITY value after the
INSERT. Could you explain why you want the IDENTITY value before
insertion? How do you intend to use the returned value? There are some
strategies you could use, such as generating a value first and then
INSERTing it. If you want to use an IDENTITY column though I'm not sure
what benefit you would gain by knowing the value beforehand.

Serializing INSERTs isn't recommended because that approach doesn't
scale well. It shouldn't be necessary with an IDENTITY column anyway.

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David Portas
SQL Server MVP
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