Background processing in ASP.NET page

[Hilmar Bunjes]

Hi,
I'm working on a web application in ASP.NET 3.5 and need some help with
processing stuff in the background.

The user who visits a web page can make reservations. Each reservation
will result in a notification for the user and an involved company.
Sending the notifications can take some seconds but the user shouldn't
need to wait for the page. So the only way to handle this is AFAIK to do
some background processing that is not connected to the page processing
itself.

In the application I store all notifications that need to be sent in the
database so another process can take them from there and send them.
However I'm unsure how to realize this process. Due to the hosted
environment so there is no chance to deploy a Windows service.

The following solutions seem to be possible:
1. Create a QueueUserWorkItem that handles the process:
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(new WaitCallback(SendNotifications));

A problem seems to be that under high load the ASP.NET thread pool can
run out of processes.

2. Create a background thread that handles the process:
Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(SendNotifications));
thread.IsBackground = true;
thread.Start();

3. Create a System.Threading.Timer in global.asax that regularly looks
(like every 5 min) for notifications to be sent and sends them.

Has anyone tips which of these solutions seems to be the best in this
case or maybe there is even another one I haven't thought of?

Thanks,
Hilmar

[Eliyahu Goldin]

Google for Asynchronous Operations in ASP.NET. This could be the starting
point:

http://www.beansoftware.com/asp.net-...n-pattern.aspx
--
Eliyahu Goldin,
Software Developer
Microsoft MVP [ASP.NET]
http://msmvps.com/blogs/egoldin
http://usableasp.net
"Hilmar Bunjes" <ne*******@silveraxe.dewrote in message
news:48**********************@newsspool1.arcor-online.net...

Hi,
I'm working on a web application in ASP.NET 3.5 and need some help with
processing stuff in the background.

The user who visits a web page can make reservations. Each reservation
will result in a notification for the user and an involved company.
Sending the notifications can take some seconds but the user shouldn't
need to wait for the page. So the only way to handle this is AFAIK to do
some background processing that is not connected to the page processing
itself.

In the application I store all notifications that need to be sent in the
database so another process can take them from there and send them.
However I'm unsure how to realize this process. Due to the hosted
environment so there is no chance to deploy a Windows service.

The following solutions seem to be possible:
1. Create a QueueUserWorkItem that handles the process:
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(new WaitCallback(SendNotifications));

A problem seems to be that under high load the ASP.NET thread pool can run
out of processes.

2. Create a background thread that handles the process:
Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(SendNotifications));
thread.IsBackground = true;
thread.Start();

3. Create a System.Threading.Timer in global.asax that regularly looks
(like every 5 min) for notifications to be sent and sends them.

Has anyone tips which of these solutions seems to be the best in this case
or maybe there is even another one I haven't thought of?

Thanks,
Hilmar

[Peter Bromberg [C# MVP]]

This article http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/20040916.asp may provide
some direction on how to use an HttpModule with a Timer to do polling.
--Peter
"Hilmar Bunjes" <ne*******@silveraxe.dewrote in message
news:48**********************@newsspool1.arcor-online.net...

Hi,
I'm working on a web application in ASP.NET 3.5 and need some help with
processing stuff in the background.

The user who visits a web page can make reservations. Each reservation
will result in a notification for the user and an involved company.
Sending the notifications can take some seconds but the user shouldn't
need to wait for the page. So the only way to handle this is AFAIK to do
some background processing that is not connected to the page processing
itself.

In the application I store all notifications that need to be sent in the
database so another process can take them from there and send them.
However I'm unsure how to realize this process. Due to the hosted
environment so there is no chance to deploy a Windows service.

The following solutions seem to be possible:
1. Create a QueueUserWorkItem that handles the process:
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(new WaitCallback(SendNotifications));

A problem seems to be that under high load the ASP.NET thread pool can run
out of processes.

2. Create a background thread that handles the process:
Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(SendNotifications));
thread.IsBackground = true;
thread.Start();

3. Create a System.Threading.Timer in global.asax that regularly looks
(like every 5 min) for notifications to be sent and sends them.

Has anyone tips which of these solutions seems to be the best in this case
or maybe there is even another one I haven't thought of?

Thanks,
Hilmar