Is there a way to delay an HTTP response in ASP.NET MVC 4 without using Thread.Sleep?

Question

I want to delay the response of my website authentication request so that the server begins responding at a particular seconds offset from when the request was received.

For example, if the user authenticates at 04:00:00, I want the response to come back at 04:00:05, not sooner nor later. If it is not possible for the code to meet the deadline, I want it to cause an error.

This must be done on the server side and I would like to avoid using Thread.Sleep. Though, I was thinking there may be a way to do this with an async controller and using Thread.Sleep in part of the request's continuation

Has anyone here faced a similar challenge and what was your solution?

Can any of you folks think of a way to do this while avoiding Thread.Sleep and maintaining responsiveness?

Answer 1

You can use the Async support in MVC 4 (or an AsyncController if you're on MVC 3)

public async Task<ActionResult> GizmosAsync()
{
    var gizmoService = new GizmoService();
    return View("Gizmos", await gizmoService.GetGizmosAsync());
}

The method in await can then use the time it needs, including Thread.Sleep.

That way, you're not blocking ASP.net from handling other requests.