Best way to run scheduled tasks [closed]

Answer 1

Create a custom Windows Service.

I had some mission-critical tasks set up as scheduled console apps and found them difficult to maintain. I created a Windows Service with a 'heartbeat' that would check a schedule in my DB every couple of minutes. It's worked out really well.

Having said that, I still use scheduled console apps for most of my non-critical maintenance tasks. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Answer 2

Why reinvent the wheel, use the Threading and the Timer class.

    protected void Application_Start()
    {
        Thread thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(ThreadFunc));
        thread.IsBackground = true;
        thread.Name = "ThreadFunc";
        thread.Start();
    }

    protected void ThreadFunc()
    {
        System.Timers.Timer t = new System.Timers.Timer();
        t.Elapsed += new System.Timers.ElapsedEventHandler(TimerWorker);
        t.Interval = 10000;
        t.Enabled = true;
        t.AutoReset = true;
        t.Start();
    }

    protected void TimerWorker(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)
    {
        //work args
    }

Answer 3

Use Windows Scheduler to run a web page.

To prevent malicous user or search engine spiders to run it, when you setup the scheduled task, simply call the web page with a querystring, ie : mypage.aspx?from=scheduledtask

Then in the page load, simply use a condition : if (Request.Querystring["from"] == "scheduledtask") { //executetask }

This way no search engine spider or malicious user will be able to execute your scheduled task.

Answer 4

This library works like a charm http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/tsnewlib.aspx

It allows you to manage Windows scheduled tasks directly through your .NET code.

Answer 5

If you own the server you should use the windows task scheduler. Use AT /? from the command line to see the options.

Otherwise, from a web based environment, you might have to do something nasty like set up a different machine to make requests to a certain page on a timed interval.

Answer 6

I've used Abidar successfully in an ASP.NET project (here's some background information).

The only problem with this method is that the tasks won't run if the ASP.NET web application is unloaded from memory (ie. due to low usage). One thing I tried is creating a task to hit the web application every 5 minutes, keeping it alive, but this didn't seem to work reliably, so now I'm using the Windows scheduler and basic console application to do this instead.

The ideal solution is creating a Windows service, though this might not be possible (ie. if you're using a shared hosting environment). It also makes things a little easier from a maintenance perspective to keep things within the web application.