SQL Server 2005 Notification Services


SQL Server 2005 Notification Services (SQL-NS) is a platform for building and executing rich, scalable notification applications. It's part of the Business Intelligence Suite in SQL Server 2005.

Note

The previous version of SQL Server Notification Services (version 2.0) was released as a web download addition to Microsoft SQL Server 2000. The information in this book applies only to the 2005 release. For information on version 2.0, see the previous edition of this book, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Notification Services, ISBN: 0672326647.


A Platform for Building Notification Applications

If you looked at the internals of several notification applications, you would see certain patterns in common. At the highest level, they all gather data, match it with subscriptions, and generate notifications. Digging deeper, you'd notice that the software components to accomplish these tasks all shared a basic framework that was customized to the specifics of each application. If you were building several such notification applications, you wouldn't rebuild this common framework for each one; instead, you'd abstract the common elements in a set of components and then add application-specific code where necessary.

SQL-NS is Microsoft's implementation of the software elements common to all notification applications. It is a platform on which rich, scalable, reliable notification applications can be built much faster than if they were built from scratch. Using this platform, it is possible to prototype a working notification application in a single day of development. Many customer-facing notification applications built on SQL-NS have gone from design to running live in production within eight weeks. Many applications designed for internal use have been deployed even more quickly.

SQL-NS provides a declarative programming framework. You specify the size and shape of the data (incoming data feeds, subscription data, and notification data) and the logic used to determine when a piece of incoming data matches a subscription. The framework provides the mechanisms for facilitating the information flow, executing the logic, and performing the notification delivery. The result is that you can focus on the specifics of your application and not worry about the platform fundamentals.

The programming framework offers easy-to-use abstractions of the rich application features, such as digesting, retry on failure, and support for scheduled subscriptions discussed in the section "Rich Application Features" (p. 14). Applications built on SQL-NS have all these features, without your having to implement them yourself. Features like these distinguish the most sophisticated notification applications from the rudimentary ones that don't usually generate customer satisfaction.

Frameworks that support a wide array of applications always impose some restrictions on the developers who build on them. Although this is certainly true of SQL-NS, my experience working with a number of developers who have used it in the real world has shown that the vast majority of notification applications can be built on SQL-NS quite naturally. And the framework is extensible. In cases where it does not fit the needs of your application, you can customize it. Plug-in components (that you implement in any of the .NET programming languages) can be inserted at many points in the framework to enhance or replace existing behavior.

A Platform for Executing Notification Applications

In addition to the declarative programming framework, SQL-NS also provides an engine for executing the notification applications you build. This engine is based on SQL Server 2005 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. It provides the scalability, reliability, and security required by commercial notification applications. By running your application on the SQL-NS engine, you get these benefits automatically. Throughout this book, we will develop applications using the SQL-NS development platform and then run them using the SQL-NS engine.

The SQL-NS engine is designed to be easy to deploy and administer. It supports a multitude of deployment scenarios, including single-server, distributed, and clustered configurations. It comes with a complete set of management tools in SQL Server 2005 Management Studio. It also provides monitoring, reporting, and diagnostic facilities that integrate with existing infrastructure in IT environments.

Why Use SQL Server Notification Services?

SQL-NS is proven technology being used in live production applications by several large companies, including Microsoft itself.

Though it may seem so at first, building a professional notification application is not a trivial task. The key benefits of using SQL-NS to build your application can be summarized as follows:

  • Developer productivity SQL-NS dramatically reduces the development effort required to build your applications and give them the performance, reliability, security, and rich features needed.

  • Administrator convenience Applications built on SQL-NS behave predictably, can be deployed using proven practices, and are supported using a standard set of tools and procedures.

Combined, these factors greatly reduce the time to market for most notification applications. After a SQL-NS-based notification application is up and running, these same factors contribute to keeping its maintenance costs low.

If you already have SQL Server 2005, you can begin using SQL-NS immediately. Chapter 2, "Getting Set Up," provides the instructions on how to install SQL-NS and set up your environment to use it.

Tip

If you are thinking about building a notification application, I strongly encourage you to try SQL-NS and work through some of the samples in this book. Doing so will give you some first-hand insight into what SQL-NS offers and will likely help you get your application up and running quickly.


What's New in 2005

For readers familiar with previous versions of SQL-NS, this section highlights the new features and modifications in the 2005 release. Although the basic application model has remained the same, the following enhancements make the product richer, more flexible, and easier to use:

  • Integration with SQL Server 2005 SQL-NS is now packaged with SQL Server 2005, rather than as a separate download. It is installed via the SQL Server 2005 installer and integrated into the SQL Server 2005 management and upgrade tools. Because the new version of SQL-NS is based on SQL Server 2005, notification applications can take advantage of new database engine features, such as native XML support and hosting of CLR assemblies.

  • 64-bit support SQL-NS now runs on the 64-bit platforms supported by SQL Server 2005, in both native and Windows-on-Windows (WoW) modes.

  • End-user defined matching logic The enhanced matching engine in SQL-NS 2005 enables you to build applications in which the subscribers themselves can provide the matching logic for their subscriptions. In previous releases, the matching logic was always supplied by the application developer. The new behavior enables you to build more powerful applications that users can customize freely.

  • Analysis Services event provider SQL-NS 2005 includes a new, built-in event provider that executes MDX queries against cubes built with Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services. Using this component, you can build applications that obtain input data from multidimensional sources, without writing custom code.

  • Hostable execution engine The SQL-NS execution engine can now be hosted inside any application process. Previously, the SQL-NS execution engine had to run as a separate Windows service. Using this feature, you can embed SQL-NS functionality into an existing application.

  • Database independence The database objects (such as tables, views, and stored procedures) that SQL-NS installs when creating notification applications can now be deployed into any database. Previously, SQL-NS database objects had to be deployed to dedicated SQL-NS databases, which sometimes created inconvenience for database administrators.

  • Management API All SQL-NS management operations, including creating new SQL-NS applications, can be done programmatically.

  • Improved testing and debugging facilities With the 2005 release, testing and debugging SQL-NS applications is easier than ever. It is now possible to test and debug an application without writing any custom code to enter input data.

The sample code throughout this book illustrates these new features in use.




Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Notification Services
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Notification Services
ISBN: 0672327791
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 166
Authors: Shyam Pather

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