Question

Based on this answer here, I need to put emails in a queue and have a background task run and send them. How do I do this with an architecture that is of ASP.NET-MVC and WCF?

1. How do I build a queue (sql server)?
2. How do I build a background task?

Answer 1

You can skin this cat many different ways. The key being that the actual sending of the emails is asynchronous to the queuing of the email.

1. Queue messages via WCF Service using MSMQ binding via this series of blog posts, which assumes IIS 7: MSMQ, WCF, and IIS: Getting Them to Play Nice.
2. Queue messages to MSMQ. MSMQ is a nice (sometimes underutilized) queue service built into Windows. You’ll write a Windows service to receive messages from this queue. If you have IIS 7, then check out Death to Windows Services, Long Live AppFabric. MSMQ is a breeze, but has some quirky constraints (4MB message size and availability)
3. Queue messages to a ‘sql queue’. Create a table to hold basic queued message information and then stored procedures to wrap the queue semantics (e.g. you don’t want multiple consumers to receive the same message). Not difficult, but a little time consuming to get right.
4. Queue messages to Service Broker (or even MSMQ) and write a Windows service that receives messages from the Service Broker Queue. Service Broker handles the queueing semantics (competing consumers) for you. The downside is that its a pain in the ass to administer.

HTH,

Z