Hi @deanhowell2009,
The live version of the demo you are referring to is using FME Cloud as backend. As @redgeographics already mentioned that notification part could possibly be redone in an easier way with FME Server Automations.
The DB that comes with the FME Cloud instance is a fully functional PostGIS database separate from the FME Server backend DB. This can be used for POCs and rapid prototyping. For critical production systems, I recommend using an external DB to make sure the FME Cloud instance performance is not impacted by whatever runs on the DB.
Here is an architecture overview for our live demos:
https://www.safe.com/blog/2014/01/simple-web-application-architecture-using-github-aws-s3-deploy-fme-cloud/The front end is hosted on AWS S3, but you can use any web server to host the demos. Here are also some more demos and documentation for the JS api:
https://playground.fmeserver.com/