Upgrade (Service Broker)

Service Broker operations do not change when a database or an instance of the Database Engine are upgraded from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008. The Service Broker features available in SQL Server 2005 have the same behavior in SQL Server 2008.

SQL Server 2005 databases are upgraded to SQL Server 2008 when the following are true:

  • They are attached to an instance of the SQL Server 2008 Database Engine after they are detached from an instance of the SQL Server 2005 Database Engine.

  • The instance of the Database Engine they are in is upgraded from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008.

Conversation Priorities

When a SQL Server 2005 database is upgraded to SQL Server 2008, conversations continue to operate as they did in SQL Server 2005, but the system objects are built to support conversation priorities:

  • The upgrade process builds the new system objects required to support conversation priorities. It adds conversation priority columns to existing system tables, views, trace events, and performance counters.

  • The HONOR_BROKER_PRIORITY database option is initialized to the default of OFF.

  • All existing messages in service queues have their priority level set to 10. This means they will be the first messages retrieved by RECEIVE statements.

  • All conversation endpoints in the upgraded database are assigned the default conversation priority of 5.

You can start to use conversation priorities in an upgraded database by doing the following:

  • Using the ALTER DATABASE statement to set the HONOR_BROKER_PRIORITY database option ON.

  • Using the CREATE BROKER PRIORITY statement to define a set of conversation priorities in the database.