How to do Job Scheduling in ASP .Net( C# )?

Question

I want that my code should be execute every night at 12:00 AM . Then how to perform this scheduling??

Zoran Horvat · Answer

You have to find a computer which is always on and always online. Then write a Windows Service application which posts HTTP requests to specific ASP page at scheduled time intervals and install that service on the computer. However this is not feasible in general case and I have never used this method professionally. So I would suggest anyway that you try making a DB job which does the required work if applicable to your problem. This is what hosting companies support for couple of dollars a year and that is the cheapest and most effective way to do periodic tasks on the Web site.

kishan gajjar · Answer

I have implemet the 2nd solution... Now can you please explain me that how can i run that application on Live server( Web Server -Hosting).

Zoran Horvat · Answer

ASP.NET itself does not support scheduled invocations. That is because ASP.NET code (and any other server-side script) executes only upon HTTP request which does not depend on the code/script alone. Scheduling is implemented by a third party which contacts ASP.NET code at scueduled intervals. This can be done in various ways: 1. Make Web host company do that (some companies offer that as service I think). 2. Create a Windows service to occasionally hits some page with HTTP request. 3. Create a Windows service to occasionally hit some Web service which is actually part of the Web site code base. Solutions 2 and 3 require you to have a computer which is 24/7 online which is often not an option. Depending on what you need to be done maybe that can be implemented in database. In that case hosting companies also provide database jobs as a service and those can be scheduled to run at specified time. If all options fail there is a work-around. You may write your ASP.NET code so that it performs the task as part of its regular work if enough time passed since the last execution of that task. In that way maintenance task is piggybacked on regular HTTP requests. Drawbacks of this solution are: 1. Background task may increase response time for a regular HTTP request which has nothing to do with client's request. This is especially bad if response to client depends on completion of the background task (e.g. background task calculates some statistics). 2. Background task is invoked in irregular intervals; if Web site has low hit-rate these intervals may become too long. Another work-around for this problem is to redesign the system so that work that was considered background is now executed as part of normal operation (e.g. if statistics should be gathered in regular intervals make sure that all statistics affected by the ASP.NET execution are updated immediately and synchronously). In this way lengthy task will be spread accross many customers calls and they might observe it as small increase in latency rather than occasional large increase in latency which can occur in previous work-around described.