I want to Scheduling in Asp.net
I have following options to implement this
To write SQLServer JOB(I dont want to do this.Dont want to go outside of .Net environment)
Second option is I will write windows service and this window service will call asp.net
webservice then this webservice calls asp.net method
(I also dont need to do this because my hosting provider might not be allow me to install
window service)
Third option is I call my scheduling method in Application_Start event in global class
(Drawback is, webserver will kill thread any time )
To call Scheduling Code in Page_Load event of Home Page(Might be nobody visits my website for hours
,Also page execution might be slow due to scheduling code)
I also found some online services that calls your page at given interval,some are given below
http://www.cronservice.co.uk/new/
http://scheduler.codeeffects.com
Anybody give me bettor solution of this and also explain why it is bettor?
Thanks in Advance
The ASP.NET application isn't the right place to implement scheduling. I would suggest creating a service or a scheduled task that runs in short intervals.
You don't have many options in a shared hosting environment. My host (WinHost) allows remote access to their database, so I was able to create an executable that ran on a local server with Task Scheduler.
The performance isn't great since the database is accessed over the internet, but it's still better than attempting to run pseudo scheduled tasks with ASP.NET.
Some hosts also offer a service that will request a url within your site on a scheduled basis. However, this didn't work for me because the task I had to run took longer than the request timeout.
There is no one solution that fits all. SQL jobs and windows jobs (scheduled thru windows task scheduler) are very widely used. In one of my previous work places they had jobs that ran on multiple platforms (mainframe,windows,sql server). Failure in some of these jobs, would cost in thousands by the day. So they employed something called ESP. This software monitored jobs on all platforms and sent a message to the control room in case of a failure.
If you throw some more light on the requirement, we might be able to help you better.
ASP.NET is not the right place to house your Scheduled Tasks. I'm using Quartz.net when I have to create Scheduled Tasks.
Create a page that launches your task and place it at the URL http://www.mydomain.com/runtask.
Create a scheduled task on your home PC that sends a request to http://www.mydomain.com/runtask.
You'll need to keep your home PC on all the time.
Ideally I would go with number 1 as you get full control/history/error reporting etc. You can write an SSIS job in .NET and have SQL server schedule it.
However, I have had a similar problem with shared hosting that is very restrictive. What I did was create a page which runs the process on page load (using validation in the querystring for security). I then used a machine I have which is always on to schedule a Windows Task Scheduler (this is part of Windows as standard) to call a bit of VB script that opens the browser and then shuts it.
Related
Once a day, I want my ASP.NET MVC4 website, which may be running on multiple servers, to email a report to me. This seems like a pretty common thing to want to do, but I'm having a tough time coming up with a good way to do it.
Trying to run a timer on a server to do this work is problematic for a couple of reasons. If I have multiple servers then I'd have the timer running on all of them (in case a server goes down); I'd need to coordinate between them, which gets complicated. Also, trying to access the database via Entity Framework from a background thread adds the complication that I must employ a locking strategy to serialize construction/disposal of the DbContext object between the periodic background thread and the "foreground" Controller thread.
Another option would be to run a timer on the servers, but to have the timer thread perform a GET to a magic page that generates and emails the report. This solves the DbContext problem because the database accesses happen in a normal Controller action, serialized with all of the other Controller accesses to the database. But I'm still stuck with the problem of having potentially more than one timer running, so I'd need some smarts in the Controller action to ignore redundant report requests.
Any suggestions? How is this sort of thing normally done?
You should not be doing this task from your web application as Phil Haack nicely explains it in his blog post.
How is this sort of thing normally done?
You could perform this task from a Windows Service or even a console application that is scheduled to run at regular intervals using the Windows Scheduler.
The proper solution is to create a background service that runs independently of your website. However, if that is not an option there is a hack where you can use the cache as explained in Easy Background Tasks in ASP.NET by Jeff Atwood.
A few options:
If you are hosting on Azure as a Website, check out WebJobs which was released recently in preview (http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/web-sites-create-web-jobs/)
If you don't want the pain of extracting out your email logic outside of the website, expose that functionality at a url (with a handler, mvc action, etc.) and then run a Windows Scheduled task that hits that url on a schedule.
Write a simple console app that is executed similarly via a Windows Scheduled task.
Or write a simple Windows Service that internally is looping and checking the time and when reached, hits that url, runs that exe, or has it's own code to send you the email.
I would recommend running Quartz.NET as a Windows Service:
Quartz.NET - Enterprise Job Scheduler for .NET Platform
There's boilerplate code for a Windows Service in the download.
I have written a web application in asp.net. It has some user roles. There are 3 roles which are Manager, Accountant and Employee. The employees write their expenses in a form and send it to Manager. When manager approves it, it'll be sent to Accountant to pay it. I need to have an idea that when manager doesn't approve the employee's expense in 48 hours, it should send an automatic e-mail to Manager's mail.
I thought that I can write another small console application to handle that by checking every hour. But it would waste resources and decrease performance.
I need a good idea to handle that. How should I do?
There are several options, but if I were you I would go with first or second options.
Console App & scheduler
I would create that console application that every time is run perform the check for you.
Then I will have it run using Windows Scheduler in a daily basis (at 00:05) or a hourly basis if you prefer so. This way Windows Scheduler daemon will launch it every hour and the rest of the time your app is not running.
Check this Microsoft link to see how a scheduled task is created in windows.
Restful Web Service & scheduler
As suggested in #marapet answer, having a restful web service that allow you to perform this action instead of a console application would give you the advantage of having all code in your web application.
Similar as previous one, you should only invoke the restful uri to have your action done. As possible disadvantage, you have to get sure that that uri is not accessible to end users. In usual architecture (Web Server --> Application Server --> DB) this restful service should be in the Application Servers, far away from end user access.
Windows Service
Another option is creating a Windows Service that runs all the time and check the time itself so every hour perform the job (maybe using Quartz or similar). But this does not meet your performance requirements.
The performance hit will be small anyway as your service should check every minute to see if an hour has pass and is time to do its job.. a task pretty easy.
The advantage is that a windows service is easier to control and monitor than a Scheduled tasks
DB job
Yet another option... If your app uses SQL Server you can have a t-sql job that runs daily or hourly. I wouldn't recommend this option unless you really have performance problems.
The problem with this is that you would be splitting the logic and responsibilities of your code. A future developer or admin would find hard to maintain your app.
If you'd like to keep the logic within the web application for simplicity (depending on the total size of your solution, this may or may not be desired):
For a given URL, have the web app check for due approvals and sends emails out if needed. Be sure to keep track of emails sent in order to prevent sending the same email multiple times.
Call this URL in a regular interval. You may use a scheduled task or a third party url monitoring service to do this.
You may call the URL with a simple VBScript (or wget, or curl, or powershell, or whatever is fastest for you), which in turn you can automate by using the task scheduler (see also).
An example script in vbscript for calling an URL:
Function LoadUrl(url)
Dim objRequest
Set objRequest = CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP.6.0")
objRequest.open "POST", url , false
objRequest.Send
LoadUrl = objRequest.responseText
Set objRequest = Nothing
End Function
Checking every hour won't affect performance. Even checking every minute is probably fine, depending on your database. The simplest option is a console program fired as a Scheduled Task. You can also try a Windows Service but they're a bit trickier.
Also give some thought how you'll count the 48 hours. If an employee puts in expenses just before the weekend then 48 hours will probably elapse every time and you'll end up with a manager having lots of emails in their Inbox on Monday morning. That could cause some friction :)
So, this question has been asked lots, and i have seen many different answers, but nothing finite or absolute for my scenario.
_
What I want to do:
We have a website, with a community of users.
In the admin section of the website, there are buttons to run the following functions:
Email all the users our weekly newsletter [Thursday 4pm],
message users that day's information [Daily 6pm],
post to facebook through facebook connect [Daily 8am and 6pm],
etc, etc. (There will be new requirements coming soon too, but they will follow the same principal)
_
All I want to do is to run these functions automatically, so a member of staff does not need to go to the website, login, then click each of the buttons at the set times.
That is, effectively, have the server click these buttons automatically, at the set times mentioned above.
_
I have seen suggestions for building a service with a timer built in, which will call each function, or use windows task scheduler, build an exe / com etc, but i get the gut feeling it should not be this complicated.
We have the code already written to actually do the tasks in a .net web page, and using some custom built classes etc.
I just do not know how to automatically call these functions at the desired times.
_
Server Info:
Dedicated server running Windows Web Server 2008 R2 (64bit)
Development Enviro:
Visual Studio 2010 SP1, using .NET 4.0
_
Thank you in advance for your help.
Kindest Regards,
Del
Splitting out the code into separate exes/dlls that can be called from the Windows task scheduler as well as your application is the way to go.
There's no sense in re-inventing a scheduler inside your application when one exists in the operating system you are running on. Particularly as your application is a web application which should be doing web things not server things.
The added advantage is that you have made your application more modular and easier to upgrade.
By definition, web servers respond to requests. This fundamental design manifests in all kinds of ways, such as application pools being shut down after a period of inactivity. For this reason, it is not a good idea to execute time-dependent code inside the context of a web server, because it is difficult to guarantee that the code will actually run (without jumping through a lot of hoops that have other negative side effects). Instead, an external time-dependent mechanism should send a request to the web server to execute these functions.
You said that you didn't want to use Windows Scheduler or write an external exe because "it shouldn't be this complicated"; but I don't see what's complicated about having a scheduled task call a web service.
Well, though I agree with other answers cheering for windows task scheduler and that website has nothing to do with scheduling tasks (it can be the source of input parameters, not the task runner itself), you could try using scheduling library like quartz.NET to schedule and run your necessary processes in the background.
Download cURL - a command-line HTTP request utility. Use this utility from task scheduler to call your web page / web service with the specific query string required to execute your functions.
http://curl.haxx.se/
This isnt very secure - anyone that knew the correct query string could cause these functions to execute - but it gives you the general idea. In my opinion its much safer to write a console app that uses your assemblies to directly execute your functionality. Call the console app from task scheduler.
I'm building a web application that will need to import data from other database servers when it starts.
I would like to have this import done automatically at regular intervals. I would also like to be able to start and stop the import process from my web application.
What would be the best implementation for the import agent - a Windows Service? Something else?
If your web application needs to have this data in memory, you can use the Cache class.
Set it to expire every X hours, as you need and when it expires, re-fetch the data..
You could create a Windows Service that uses Quartz.Net to run the scheduled tasks.
You should not run scheduled task from your web app, since you don't have any guarantee that your web app is running. You're at IIS app pool management's mercy.
You might want to look at Best way to run scheduled tasks.
Of what I heard this looks like a description for Microsoft Sync Framework. I have just few information about it for myself but will be pleased to see you pointed into that direction.
I'm not sure about your question because you are talking about hourly syncing. When talking web applications, there can't be a nice way to do such a task. You have to create a console app or best task would be a Windows Service Process (which are easier then it sounds)?
Sync Framework Intro
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sync/bb821992
Sync Framework Tutorial
http://alexduggleby.com/2007/12/16/sync-framework-tutorial-part-1-introduction/
Sync Framework Samples
http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/sync
And, when I'm editing the answer with links
Nice guide to create a Windows Service (and setup)
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/simplewindowsservice.aspx
(if first time, try it on a test project before the production project)
This might be an oversimplification, but can you create a class that does all of this work using a Timer, and then in the application_start of the global.asax, create a BackgroundWorker that kicks off this process?
Your web application could then control the BackgroundWorker object, starting/stopping as necessary.
I want to develop an Online Reminder service in ASP.NET 2.0 (C#) and SQL2005. But I am not getting the concept of reminder service. What I know is using an online reminder service I can schedule a reminder for future dates, which is sent to me (who schedule reminder) via email or SMS on that date. But in asp.net how to do this, caz anyone can schedule a reminder for any date, how we'll know that when to send that mail to the person. We have to put some loop or what.
So please guide me, what is the concept of an online reminder service and how I can easily develop this application using ASP.NET and SQL
Edited
I am on Shared hosting server, so that solution must be able to work on shared hosting.
Or
Please tell me if anyone knows about any FREE and open-source reminder service CMS which I can download and study it.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 have scheduling (sql jobs) and email features. You may even donot need to use ASP.NET.
Ideally, you would have a windows service that would periodically (every few minutes) check if any new reminders need to be sent out. Since you are on shared hosting, you probably can't install a service though.
I'm not very familiar with windows shared hosting, but if you have the option of creating scheduled/cron job type tasks you could probably do it that way.
If you can't create a scheduled task on your server, another option would be to create a scheduled task on your home PC with a program/script that runs every few minutes and simply hits a special web page on your site. That page could then have the code that checks for reminders and sends them out. It's a bit of a hack, but it should work.
Have a look at Quartz.Net (http://quartznet.sourceforge.net/). You can create an instance of the quartz scheduler in your Application_Start event and as long as the ASP.Net application is running, it will poll the database and trigger any functions you have registered with it. Since you are on a shared host environment, this is probably your best bet unless your hosting provider has a scheduler that can trigger a WebForm (or ASP.Net MVC Controller) periodically.
First you will obviously need to create a user interface and database to store the reminders. That part you got. The next step is to create a service which periodically queries the database for reminders that are due for notification.
The best way to do this is to write a lightweight Windows Service which, as you suggest, uses a loop and a reasonable sleep time (so as not to monopolize the CPU) to continually check the database for reminders and dispatches notifications. It then processes each reminder based on your requirements.
But since you are on shared hosting, you can't deploy a Windows Service, so the next best thing is to run a background thread on Application_Start of your global.asax. There are many examples of how to do this, e.g.:
http://www.west-wind.com/WebLog/posts/67557.aspx
What are some best practices for managing background threads in IIS?
Shared hosting will not work well with what you are trying to do. You could create a background polling thread on Application start, but it will get shut down at some point and may actually be prohibited by your hosting company. An infinite loop will most likely be detected by your hoster and result in your account being automatically shut down, especially if it is using a fair bit of CPU. As John suggests, there may be a scheduled tasks or hosted cron option with your ISP, but generally, those are just for doing things like nightly backups, not really having the level of granularity you need.
Simple answer is, you most likely need something other than a hosted account. You may need to look into a VPS shared hosting service or you may wish to consider looking into MS Azure or Amazon EC2. To do this right, you need to create an application, or better, a service that runs constantly, something a shared hosting account will not provide.
There also a few services out there who can call a specific web page on your service periodically. You could use that to make the page check if there are any reminders that need to be sent.
However since you're then relying on an external site you can't control this might not be the ideal solution if it is very important that the reminders are always being sent.
1) Create a database for storing messages, with a datestamp
2) Create an SQL job, that selects all messages in a time period
3) From the SQL job, you can initialize an .net based SQL Function, that would send out the emails with the System.Net.Mail namespace.
You might consider a 'hack' using the Cache expiration in for triggering events. Create new cache keys that expire at specific Date-Times to run the reminder or make it recur at defined intervals, checking a queue to see if anything new should be sent.
See:
Easy Background Tasks in ASPNET