If you have been wondering where Notification Services (NS) is in the prior CTPs of SQL Server 2008, you now have the answer. NS will not be carried forward to SQL Server 2008. Here’s a quote from July CTP readme:
“SQL Server Notification Services will not be included as a component of SQL Server 2008, but will continue to be supported as part of the SQL Server 2005 product support life-cycle. Moving forward, support for key notification scenarios will be incorporated into SQL Server Reporting Services. Existing Reporting Services functionality, such as data driven subscriptions, addresses some of the notification requirements. Features to support additional notification scenarios may be expected in future releases. ”
So, now we know.
I’ve been delivering training of SQL Server 2005 for a while now, and one of the courses has a module on NS. Over time, I gradually adapted to the fact that almost no-one was interested in NS and nowadays I just give a brief overwiew of what NS is, and the basics of creating an NS solution. Funny thing is that when you “get” NS, you realize that it is a neat piece of infrastructural software, taking writing some code off your hands. I guess that there hasn’t been enough interest in NS to carry it forward to next release, but that it pure speculation from my side…