Question

I wrote some code that mass imports a high volume of users into AD. To refrain from overloading the server, I put a thread.sleep() in the code, executed at every iteration.

Is this a good use of the method, or is there a better alternative (.NET 4.0 applies here)?

Does Thread.Sleep() even aid in performance? What is the cost and performance impact of sleeping a thread?

Answer 1

I think that Thread.Sleep is one way to handle this; @cHao is correct that using a timer would allow you to do this in another fashion. Essentially, you’re trying to cut down number of commands sent to the AD server over a period of time.

In using timers, you’re going to need to devise a way to detect trouble (that’s more intuitive than a try/catch). For instance, if your server starts stalling and responding slower, you’re going to continue stacking commands that the server can’t handle (which may cascade in other errors).

When working with AD I’ve seen the Domain Controller freak out when too many commands come in (similar to a DOS attack) and bring the server to a crawl or crash. I think by using the sleep method you’re creating a manageable and measurable flow.

In this instance, using a thread with a low priority may slow it down, but not to any controllable level. The thread priority will only be a factor on the machine sending the commands, not to the server having to process them.

Hope this helps; cheers!