The process for developing Notification Services applications begins with defining the rules that govern how the application works. Next, you must compile the application. Then you need to construct an interface that allows the user to add subscriptions to the application. Finally, you’ll need to add any custom components that may be needed by the application. Let’s look at each of these steps in more detail.

Defining the Application

The Notification Services developer uses a combination of XML and T-SQL to define the application’s schema and rules. When you define the schema and the rules for a Notification Services application, you are essentially describing the events that the application will monitor as well as the application’s subscriptions, its notifications, and the logic that will be used to match the events to the subscriptions. The Notification Services application’s rules are primarily defined in two files—an application definition file and an instance configuration file. Although you can also define them using the Notification Management Objects (NMO) API interface, the application definition file and the instance configuration file are typically created using a standard text editor or an XML-aware editor such as Visual Studio 2005 or XMLSpy.

Compiling the Application

After the schema and the rules have been created, the next step in building a Notification Services application is to compile all of the code and register a service that will run the Notification Services applications. To compile the application, you can use the Notification Services node in the SQL Server Management Studio or the nscontrol command-line utility. These tools create the Notification Services instance and database, if required.

Building the Notification Subscription Management Application

The first two steps build the core engine of the Notification Services application. However, users still need a way of adding their own subscription information to the application. To enable users to enter their subscription information, the Notification Services application needs a subscription management interface, which is typically a Web or Windows application built using ASP.NET, VB.NET, or C# technologies. This application updates entries to the Notification Services subscription database.

Adding Custom Components

Finally, the last step in building your Notification Services application is to optionally add any custom components that might be needed by the application. Custom components would include any required custom event providers, content formats, or notification delivery protocols that are not included in the base SQL Server 2005 Notification Services product.