Web site needs some back-end processing, looking for best methods!

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M

msnews.microsoft.com

I have a VB.NET web application using SQL Server. I need to do weekly and
monthly processing on that database that will probably require a couple
hours to complete, so having this run in the web application is probably not
a good idea.

I'd like to keep this all in the VS.NET environment (VB.NET). Should I be
using a Windows Service, or a Windows Application?

It will be able to run off a config file, changed by a web site admin
interface.


-Max
 
msnews.microsoft.com said:
I have a VB.NET web application using SQL Server. I need to do weekly and
monthly processing on that database that will probably require a couple
hours to complete, so having this run in the web application is probably not
a good idea.

I'd like to keep this all in the VS.NET environment (VB.NET). Should I be
using a Windows Service, or a Windows Application?

It will be able to run off a config file, changed by a web site admin
interface.
Click to expand...

It doesn't really matter how you do this. It depends on your environment and
your comfort levels.

VS.NET makes it easy to create a Windows Service, so you could do it that
way. You could also create a console application and run it as a scheduled
task. I've done both, and they both work well.
 
Why don't you just create a DTS package to do this? I know you want to keep
it in VS.NET environment, but there are a lot of advantages to just using
DTS.

-John Oakes
 
Yes I've thought of that, but I'm simply not good at TSQL. I'll most
definately be using stored procedures to break the process down in chunks,
and have some reuse available to me, but there is a lot of intense
calculations with the results (100,000's of records) being stored in several
tables, probably not even a temp tables, because this data needs to be
highly available after the process is done.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep the calls to the database low, as well as the
amount of data being transfered between SQL Server and the Windows service.
Eventually I want this to be running on its own dedicated server perhaps.
Some processes may run on the hour.

I guess I'm asking here to make sure I'm considering all the options.

-Max
 
What kind of calculations? You would probably be better off doing them all
in TSQL. If you use DTS, a lot of the functionality you need is already
there. You won't have to write code to run on a schedule, notify you of
results, etc. If you put all of your SQL code in stored procedure you can
just call those from the DTS package.

-John Oakes
 
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