StreamInsight and Notification Services

If you are an “old-hand” (the emphasis is on old), you may remember how Microsoft introduced a service called Notification Services (NS) at around the same time frame as SQL Server 2000. I do definitely remember, because me and a cohert (at hat time) of mine – Bob B – wrote a class about NS. Now, when StreamInsight (SI) has been introduced, some people are saying that SI is the replacement of NS.

Actually, even though NS and SI may have some simiarities (both are dealing with events in one way or another), they are definitely not the same, and it would be totally wrong to compare them. In NS, you store events in the database and then compare and match them to subscriptions also stored in the database.

SI is completely different; here you query and process the incomnig data in real-time, way before it hits the database. You definitely have the ability to use the database for storage, but you are not dependent upon it.

This – I think – is something that needs to be communicated to the industry. If this is not understood, we may end up in a scenario where StreamInsight is rejected ut of hand, due to the wrong impression that it is dependent upon a database – which is not true. So please, NS was (is) great, but do not think it is the same as Notification Services SI!

Update 1: Jamie pointed out how I in the last sentence  had said that NS is not the same as Notification Services, that should obviously be that NS is not the same as StreamInsight – thanks Jamie