Question

We’ve a requirement to create a web application, where data isretrieved from the FTP server and put to a database. There should be a thread which is responsible for pooling the FTP server, and if it finds new data, data is downloaded and inserted to the server. I was thinking about creating a new thread in Application_Start, however I’m not sure if it’s a safe solution. Can anyone suggest a better solution?

Answer 1

Phill Haack wrote a nice article about using background tasks in ASP.NET. He explained why it is not a good idea (you might bring down the app pool and leave data in a corrupted state) and if you have to do it, how its done

http://haacked.com/archive/2011/10/16/the-dangers-of-implementing-recurring-background-tasks-in-asp-net.aspx