Best practice for long(ish) processes

[BillAtWork]

Hi,
I'm hoping to find best practices for implementing an asp.net process, for
many 1000's of users, that is mainly "waiting" for data from an external
service. Platform is c#, IIS, asp.net 3.5, sql server 2005. Note that
processing is mostly taken up waiting for the external web service - the
actual workload on our side is quite light.

The process that is called asynchronously from the browser for each user. It
may take around 10-40 seconds to complete. Note that the user's browser is
NOT tied up during this time and is not "waiting" for the results - they will
simply appear upon the user's next refresh of data.

Is IIS being "tied up" in any way while waiting for this external service? I
don't think this is about asynchronous calls since the only thing "waiting"
is IIS. The users are fine. I'm trying to ascertain what's going on when you
have 1000's of simultaneous processes, each waiting for something. Perhaps
it's not even an issue and it's just what IIS does for a living!

Thanks for any help!

 

[Gregory A. Beamer]

I'm hoping to find best practices for implementing an asp.net process,
for many 1000's of users, that is mainly "waiting" for data from an
external service.

Try the ASP.NET group (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.aspnet) instead of
here. You will get better answers, as this is the traditional ASP group.

Peace and Grace,