Daemon in Java: simple schedule application?

Question

This app must perform connection to a web service, grab data, save it in the database. Every hour 24/7. What's the most effective way to create such an app in java?

How should it be run - as a system application or as a web application?

Answer 1

Keep it simple: use cron (or task scheduler)

If that's all what you want to do, namely to probe some web service once an hour, do it as a console app and run it with cron.

An app that starts and stops every hour

• cannot leak resources
• cannot hang (may be you lose one cycle)
• consumes 0 resources 99% of the time