Push Messages / Socket Programming

  • I have a client application which runs on a several hundred machines in lab environments across several different geographies. I would like to have our SQL Server be able to push messages to the client applications. I'd like to avoid a polling scheme as much as possible. The common case would be that there are no messages for a client, but when a message is there, it needs to be handled immediately. This is why I'd like to go to more of an interrupt scheme.

    A typical scenario would be that via a user console, someone would notice that a machine is in a bad state and that it needs to be rebooted, or that the client application needs to modify some of it's settings. The user would tell the sql server to send a message to the client application to perform some action.

    Is this possible? Can SQL Server send messages over sockets? Any hint would be appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Justin

  • I'll take it from the lack of responses here that no one knows the answer to this question. 🙂

    Does anyone at least have a hint or clue how this might be achieved? I don't mind doing the heavy lifting with researching the topic, but I just don't know where to start looking. Everything I have tried has been a dead end.

    Thanks,

    -Justin

  • SQL Server 2005 has a feature called Notification Services. I've never used it, so I can't give you any details on how (or even if) it works. Keep in mind that this feature is removed in SQL Server 2008 and higher.

    In SQL Server 2008 you can probably use Service Broker together with the External Activator (some details here).

    I've used Service Broker with internal activation, and that works like a charm, but I'm not familiar with external activation.

  • Thanks Nils!! I'll look into those options. Right now all of my SQL Servers are 2005, but we may be moving to 2008 in the very near future.

    -Justin

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply