It hadn’t particularly occurred to me that there would be data changes involved with the 2007 Time Zone changes in the SQL Server databases.  But as I was looking around I did find that within SQL Server Notification Services there is some data that does need to be updated.  There is a Knowledge Base article that details out the changes that need to be made and hopefully all of you out there using SQL NS gets a chance to get this implemented prior to the time zone change.

I setup SQL Server Notification Services (SSNS) at a client a few months back and there were the typical hangups that occur when implementing new technology and wondering… "does this really work?"  Eight hours of reading and some manipulation of one of the sample applications and I had their new creating files.  Of course it needed to send e-mails and another 4 hours later we got that fixed.

What were the those hangups?  Well funny you should ask… I got to relive those issues the other night and afterwards thought, "hey I should blog this."

Well, with this SSNS application I got everything installed and working fine expect when ever I’d send out an e-mail I’d get the following error.

Description: The e-mail address or SMTP server value is not valid.

EventParameters:
  SMTP Server: 127.0.0.1
  Message Recipients: jason.strate@digineer.com

Description: The server rejected one or more recipient addresses. The server response was: 550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for jason.strate@digineer.com

That’s an interesting error. I verified the SMTP server… correct.  E-mail addres… correct.  I know, firewall… not that, I could ping the SMTP server from the SQL Server.  Hey, I bet it’s relay… nope that’s setup.

At a loss for options I search google… nothing.  MSDN forums… nothing.

Network Admin wonders… does the network card have two IPs?  Why yes it does and the primary IP for the server was not the primary IP on the network card.  
In the end the issue was in the network card configuration.  The primary IP for the server needs to be the primary IP on the network card… Exchange is one of those funny applications that validates the IP of a relay request.  Upside is that this is exactly as it should work… downside this was frustrating.
And now it is blogged and I’ll never forget again.

PASSMN Meeting is coming up and I have my second speaking engagement there.  I’m really excited by the topic and hope that all who attend see the value in Notification Services over custom built notification engines.

Topic Report Builder – Model Creation
Details
Providing non-technical users with secure, user-friendly ad hoc access to relational data can be a challenge. Fortunately, SQL Server 2005 provides the Report Builder to accomplish this task. The Report Builder uses a layer of abstraction, called the Report Model, to hide the complexities of primary keys and foreign key constraints from and to provide additional metadata to Report Builder users. Brian Larson will take the group through the creation of Report Models, including several tips for model clean up and dealing with meta data. The presentation will also include the return of Duct Tape Man and Jello Woman!

Speaker: Brian Larson

About the Speaker
Brian Larson, MCSD, MCDBA, has 20 years of experience in the computer industry and 15 years’ experience as a consultant creating custom database applications. Brian is currently the Chief of Technology for Superior Consulting Services in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a Microsoft Consulting Partner for Reporting Services. Brian served on the Reporting Services development team as a consultant to Microsoft. In that role, he contributed to the original code base of Reporting Services. Brian is the author of the semi-monthly “B.I. Powers” column for SQL Server Magazine as well as Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 both from McGraw-Hill/Osborne. He can be contacted at blarson@teamscs.com.

Topic SQL Server Notification Services
Details
An introduction to Notification Services with an overview of its architecture and the development framework. The session will also include a couple real-world sample implementations of Notification Services that can be used as a starting point for other projects.
Speaker: Jason Strate

About the Speaker
Jason Strate has been a DBA for the past 8 years. During that time he’s designed and implemented both OLAP and OLTP solutions. These solutions have involved clustering servers, database monitoring/tuning, analysis services, DTS/Integration Services, Reporting Services, and Notification Services. He is currently a consultant with Digineer, Inc.

Date

5/16/2006 4:30:00 PM
Time 4:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Capacity 120

Agenda
4:30 pm – 5:00 pm Meet, greet and eat; 
5:00 pm – 5:15 pm Local PASS updates
5:15 pm – 6:15 pm Report Builder – Model Creation
6:15 pm – 7:00 pm Notification Services

Register for this Event
Location Microsoft Office, 8300 Normandale Center Drive, 9th Floor

While trying to register the Notification Services Windows Service I ran into the following error message:

=================================== 
Required information could not be retrieved from the registry. This usually indicates a problem with setup, configuration, or security. 
(Microsoft.SqlServer.NotificationServices) 
—————————— 
For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&ProdVer=9.00.1399.00&EvtSrc=NSEventStrings&EvtID=ErrorReadingRegistryParameters&LinkId=20476
—————————— 
Program Location: 
   at 
Microsoft.SqlServer.NotificationServices.Common.InstanceCompiler.Register(String instanceName, String databaseServer, NSSecureString sqlUsername,NSSecureString sqlPassword, NSSecureString serviceUsername, NSSecureString servicePassword, NSSecureString argumentKey, Boolean installService, Boolean uiReporting)
at
Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.NotificationServicesUI.RegisterInstanceGeneral.PerformRegister() 
=================================== 
Required information could not be retrieved from the registry. This usually indicates a problem with setup, configuration, or security. 
(Microsoft.SqlServer.NotificationServices) 
—————————— 
For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&ProdVer=9.00.1399.00&EvtSrc=NSEventStrings&EvtID=ErrorReadingRegistryParameters&LinkId=20476
—————————— 
Program Location:
   at 
Microsoft.SqlServer.NotificationServices.Common.VersionParameters.Get()

It turned out that the error was permissions issue when reading the SQL Server 2005 registry.  The error came up when attempting to register the windows service through the Management Studio or using nscontrol command-line utility or whether accessing the server through remote desktop or locally.

Fixing the issue was relatively simple by reinstalling the SQL Server Notifications Service.  After the reinstall the windows service registered without any issues.