Would like to execute a query once per day in ASP.NET MVC

I do this very thing in my web apps, but use Asynchronous HTTP Handlers (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms227433.aspx#Y512); I believe this would be recommended. I just start it off on application start and shut it down on application end (Global.asx).

The thing to remember is that you'll probably have to store the last time the query ran in the database because you'll loose track of that when your application pool recycles.

I'm doing this by putting some fake information in "Cache" and put the time period i want then handel the "_onCacheRemove" event do whatever i wanna do then recreate the "CacheItem" again:

e.g.

I put my tasks in Enum with the time that i wanna to rerun this task in seconds:

public enum ScheduledTasks
{
    CleanGameRequests = 120,
    CleanUpOnlineUsers = 6
}

then deal with them at "Application_Start" :

    protected void Application_Start()
    {
        AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();
        RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);

        // Adding the tasks i want at App_Start 
        // so if the application restarted my task will refreshed.
        AddTask(ScheduledTasks.CleanGameRequests);
        AddTask(ScheduledTasks.CleanUpOnlineUsers);
    }

    // event to handel
    private static CacheItemRemovedCallback _onCacheRemove;
    private void AddTask(ScheduledTasks task)
    {
        _onCacheRemove = new CacheItemRemovedCallback(CacheItemRemoved);
        HttpRuntime.Cache.Insert(task.ToString(), (int)task, null,
            DateTime.Now.AddSeconds((int)task), Cache.NoSlidingExpiration,
            CacheItemPriority.NotRemovable, _onCacheRemove);
    }

    public void CacheItemRemoved(string key, object time, CacheItemRemovedReason r)
    {
        var task = (ScheduledTasks)Enum.Parse(typeof(ScheduledTasks), key);
        switch (task)
        {
            case ScheduledTasks.CleanGameRequests:
                // Do the concept that you wanna to do.
                GameRequest.CleanUp();
                break;
            case ScheduledTasks.CleanUpOnlineUsers:
                OnlineUsers.CleanUp();
                break;
            default:
                break;
        }


        // Don't forget to recreate the "CacheItem" again.
        AddTask(task);
    }

Note: You may make your time management as you want. In my case i wanna these tasks to run every period of time regardless of what time it is.

In your case you should check the time before then recreate the CacheItem again.

Hope this helped :)

Unless you have very active site chances are that IIS will bring your application down and there will be no process to execute your task.

Alternatives:

• just do that during/immediately after request that is close enough by time
• have external task that will trigger the operation on your site via GET/POST.
• reconfigure IIS to never recycle/stop your app pool. Than your timer has chance to execute.
• use some external service on the server to schedule the task ("at" or even SQL tasks).