“It’s is Alive!”(Sort of) – SQL Server Notification Services on SQL Server 2008

Joe Webb - Running SQL Server Notification Services in 2008! 

“Late yesterday afternoon, Microsoft posted to their download site a Release Candidate (RC1) for the Notification Services Components Package. This is essentially the same package that was released back in February 2007, with one really major exception - it supports SQL Server 2008!

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As one who has worked quite a bit with Notification Services (and still I received calls and emails from around the world regarding Notification Services), I'm very glad to see this. Not only because I'm glad to see a good feature persisted a bit longer, but because Microsoft stepped up and in my opinion made good on an implicit agreement that was entered into when SSNS was incorporated into SQL Server. A feature that some of us, not many I'll freely admit but some of us, used in good faith with the understanding that it would be available in at least one more product revision. And although this component release in no way incorporates SSNS into the SQL Server 2008 product, it does allow SSNS 2005 to be used with 2008.

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Microsoft Downloads - SQL Server 2005 Notification Services Components Package RC1

“…

Version:	9.00.4014
Date Published:	9/8/2008
Language:	English
Download Size:	2.1 MB - 9.6 MB*

The SQL Server 2005 Notification Services components package provides the following server and client components that are required to deploy and run Notification Services:

• Service components that enable the SQL Server 2005 Notification Services service to execute and provide notification-processing capabilities.
• APIs that can be used within custom applications that include SQL Server 2005 Notification Services functionality:
  • Subscription management APIs that enable developers to create subscriptions and subscribers, and to manage subscriber devices.
  • Event submission APIs that enable users to specify events by using the event APIs or stored procedures.

The SQL Server 2005 Notification Services components package does not include the SQL Server Management Studio components of Notification Services.

This release of the SQL Server 2005 Notification Services components provides interoperability for running SQL Server 2005 Notification Services against either an instance of the SQL Server 2005 Database Engine or SQL Server 2008 Database Engine.

Note: This release is a pre-release version and is available only for testing. Product support is not available for this pre-release version.

…”

So SQL Server Notification Services (SSNS) on SQL Serve 2008 is not yet totally dead, yet not fully alive either. Still much better than totally buried and gone though…

I think this was a good move by Microsoft and goes a good bit toward giving me a warm fuzzy feeling about using the new stuff in SQL Server 2008 (i.e. lessens the “should I use this or not as it might be killed like SSNS in the next rev.” feelings).

This gives users of SSNS another 3-5’ish years to move off the it and still lets them take advantage of all the coolness that’s in SQL 2008.

Nice…

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Notification Services in SQL Server 2008 - Not so much... (Notification Services are gone from SQL Server 2008. Dead, gone, no more, say goodbye, etc, etc)