I'm pumped for the presentation I submitted for New England Code Camp 13 titled "Background Tasks: A Nutritious Part of a Complete Web Application." I'm currently adding the finishing touches to the new Sueetie Background Tasks Model coming in Gummy 1.3 (more on that later!) and felt it would make an interesting topic for Code Camp 13.
I've worked with background tasks in ASPNET for years and have a few tips and tricks to share on planning and adding multi-threading in web apps. I'll be demonstrating how I use background tasks in a business application where it has to work 24/7. We're going to cover how best to design task support to maximize how IIS handles multi-threading, but not in too much detail. The main IIS server focus will be on how threads are managed and what to look for if your tasks don't work.
As for source code examples of a background task architecture we're going to look at my friend Keyvan Nayyeri's Adibar ASP.NET Task Scheduling Framework. We're also going to cover the new Tasks Model coming in YetAnotherForum.NET 1.9.4. Finally we'll see how Sueetie takes what I feel are the best of both approaches in its new Background Tasks architecture.
Here's the official code camp presentation abstract:
A background task architecture enables you to extend and scale your web application to new heights. Strap in, because you'll be seeing background tasks in action! You'll learn best practices on using multi-threading in IIS as well as how to design background tasks for mission critical business applications. To get you started on building your own background tasks we'll examine the background task code design of selected Open Source ASPNET applications.