Replacing Notification Services

Question

We are using Notification services of SQL Server 2005 in our application. The scenario is that mails will be sent to customers based on different criteria like New Invoices, Overdue Invoices, Invoices due in certain number of days, Invoices for which Amount Exceeds certain value etc. We are using two stored procedures and two tables to achieve this. One stored proc inserts/updates data related to different notifications that are selected by customers. Another stored proc inserts or updates data related to customers who created the notification.

We are now planning to upgrade from SQL 2005 to SQL server 2012. Since notification services are no longer supported in SQL 2012, we are looking for other alternatives. Can someone let us know which among the below would be the best alternative to replace notification services for our scenario.

è StreamInsight

è Data driven subscriptions in SSRS

è Service broker

Also, can someone provide us with any documentation or useful links which would help us in replacing notification services

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Sowjanya

Answer 1

Notification Services has been removed from SQL Server 2008. You can use existing Reporting Services functionality, such as data-driven subscriptions, to obtain some of the functionality that was provided by Notification Services in previous versions of SQL Server.

The theory goes that Notifications Services was removed become it was made obsolete by the Reporting Services. And in truth the RS can fulfill quite a chunk of the NS role. Have you investigated how far can you ride the RS and replace your NS solution by it?

Answer 2

Hi Sowjanya,

As Irusul posted, the Notificiations Services are not supported since the release of SQL Server 2008. After upgrading to SQL Server 2012, you can use the Data-Driven subscription for your reports in Reporting Servcies. To learn more about how to create a subscription, please refer to the following links:

• Configure a Report Server for E-Mail Delivery (Reporting Services)
• Create a Data-Driven Subscription (SSRS Tutorial)
• Steps to implement a data-driven subscription
• SQL Server Reporting Services: Create Data-Driven Subscription

Additionally, if you configure the report server to run in SharePoint Integrated mode, you can also use the Data Alters which is introduced in SSRS 2012. For more information, please see:
Data Alerts (SSRS)

Hope this helps.

Regards,

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Mike Yin
TechNet Community Support