Using Parallel Extensions In Web Applications

Question

I'd like to hear some opinions as to what role, if any, parallel computing approaches, including the potential use of the parallel extensions (June CTP for example), have a in web applications. What scenarios does this approach fit and/or not fit for?

My understanding of how exactly IIS and web browsers thread tasks is fairly limited. I would appreciate some insight on that if someone out there has a good understanding. I'm more curious to know if the way that IIS and web browsers work limits the ROI of creating threaded and/or asynchronous tasks in web applications in general.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Well, web-servers present an interesting challenge in that they are already highly threaded, servicing parallel requests. So on a busy site, you can't rely on being able to steal lots of cores for your ends. Of course, if you only expect light traffic, and your site requires lots of crunching (data processing etc), then you might be able to get some savings.

I would expect Parallel Extensions to work better at the client, or dedicated service apps, where you can reasonably expect the cores to be available for your [ab]use.