Run a task schedule within asp.net application?

Question

I have an asp.net application which needs to call an API very 5 minutes to get the latest data from a server. Currently, we plan to 1) build a console application and then use windows server task scheduler to schedule it; or, 2) build a windows service for this.

Is it possible to do this within asp.net application? If yes, how?

We just want to see whether there are better solution out there.

thanks

Answer 1

As of .NET 4.5.2 there is a QueueBackgroundWorkItem API that allows you to create your own reoccuring task implementation ( see here for details and examples ) however I would recommend taking a look at some popular and more established open source libraries available. The most popular being hangfire.io

After installing it via Nuget ( PM> Install-Package Hangfire ) and configuring it with your ASP.NET MVC application like so:

public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
{
    GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.UseSqlServerStorage("<connection string or its name>");

    app.UseHangfireDashboard(); //optional
    app.UseHangfireServer(); 
}

You can start to create fire and forget schedules, delayed or reoccurring schedules like so:

BackgroundJob.Enqueue(() => Console.WriteLine("Fire-and-forget"));
BackgroundJob.Schedule(() => Console.WriteLine("Delayed"), TimeSpan.FromDays(1));
RecurringJob.AddOrUpdate(() => Console.WriteLine("Daily Job"), Cron.Daily);

What's also really nice about Hangfire is that it's got a really polished reporting feature that allows you to monitor your sheduled tasks:

You can see more screenshots of the reporting dashboard here .

Answer 2

ASP.Net is really for providing an HTML user interface to users. As the solution you are wanting does not need a user interface, creating it as an ASP.Net application makes the job of installing and maintaining the application that much harder.

Here is a post talking about the dangers of recurring background tasks in ASP.NET, it includes examples of how to do it. Probably best to use a library such as Hangfire to avoid doing it yourself.

As another option, you can even create a powershell script that is kicked off by the task scheduler.