Email, ASP timeout and web host

[JRV]

I'm sending emails to a database of 2000 people (that will be double
that in the future). My web-host provides ASPQmail. I have to send the
emails out in groups of only a few hundred at a time to avoid the page
timing out (I have set the timeout value to a very high value). Once in a
while it seems as if either the SMTP server or the web server is running
slowly and I can't get it to send even a few without timeout problems. I
never get the log file showing anything.
Is there a better web-host situation and email/SMTP I should look for?
Do I need a dedicated server? Any suggestions as to how to go about a bulk
email scenario? At least when I do have problems I would like to know
which clients received their mailing and which ones didn't.

 

[Atrax]

plain ordinary ASP isn't really suited to big, long-term processing such
as that involved with large mailing lists. the solution I recommend is
to use MSMQ and a service running on the server monitoring that queue.
the ASP page acts as a simple front-end, which is rapidly released after
setting an item in the queue. the background service then handles the
actual leg-work, writing to a log or emailing the user to notify of
success/failure

yup, for this you'd need a dedicated server - I haven't yet seen a
shared plan which you can use this sort of thing on.


________________________________________
Atrax. MVP, IIS
http://rtfm.atrax.co.uk/

newsflash : Atrax.Richedit 1.0 now released.
http://rtfm.atrax.co.uk/infinitemonkeys/components/Atrax.RichEdit/

 

[JRV]

Thanks much.