Correctly implement background process Thread in ASP.NET

Question

I need to execute an infinite while loop and want to initiate the execution in global.asax. My question is how exactly should I do it? Should I start a new Thread or should I use Async and Task or anything else? Inside the while loop I need to do await TaskEx.Delay(5000);

How do I do this so it will not block any other processes and will not create memory leaks?

I use VS10,AsyncCTP3,MVC4

EDIT:

 public void SignalRConnectionRecovery()
        {
            while (true)
            {
                Clients.SetConnectionTimeStamp(DateTime.UtcNow.ToString());
                await TaskEx.Delay(5000);
            }
        }

All I need to do is to run this as a singleton instance globally as long as application is available.

EDIT:SOLVED

This is the final solution in Global.asax

protected void Application_Start()
{
    Thread signalRConnectionRecovery = new Thread(SignalRConnectionRecovery);
    signalRConnectionRecovery.IsBackground = true;
    signalRConnectionRecovery.Start();

    Application["SignalRConnectionRecovery"] = signalRConnectionRecovery;
}


protected void Application_End()
{
    try
    {
        Thread signalRConnectionRecovery = (Thread)Application["SignalRConnectionRecovery"];
        if (signalRConnectionRecovery != null && signalRConnectionRecovery.IsAlive)
        {
            signalRConnectionRecovery.Abort();
        }
    }
    catch
    {
            ///
    }
}

I found this nice article about how to use async worker: http://www.dotnetfunda.com/articles/article613-background-processes-in-asp-net-web-applications.aspx

And this: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/CSASPNETBackgroundWorker-dda8d7b6

But I think for my needs this one will be perfect: http://forums.asp.net/t/1433665.aspx/1

Answer 1

ASP.NET is not designed to handle this kind of requirement. If you need something to run constantly, you would be better off creating a windows service.

Update

ASP.NET is not designed for long running tasks. It's designed to respond quickly to HTTP requests. See Cyborgx37's answer or Can I use threads to carry out long-running jobs on IIS? for a few reasons why.

Update

Now that you finally mentioned you are working with SignalR, I see that you are trying to host SignalR within ASP.NET, correct? I think you're going about this the wrong way, see the example NuGet package referenced on the project wiki. This example uses an IAsyncHttpHandler to manage tasks.