Asynchronous web service calls, will you still have timeouts

[Norton]

If I am calling web services asynchronously, will I still have to be
concerned with the request timing out? If IIS starts a process (calling a
web service) and it goes off and takes 30 minutes to do something
(exaggeration), will there be a timeout?

Thanks.

Norton

 

[Jeffrey Hasan]

It depends on the client as well as the timeout setting on the proxy class.
If the client is a Windows client then in theory, a 30 minute timeout will
not be a problem. If the client is a Web form then this will almost
certainly be a problem because although the call is asynchronous, it must
return before a response can be sent back to the client. There is an
alternative: if you use the DHTML Web behavior, which makes Web service
calls directly from client-side script, then these calls are truly
asynchronous, and you can use the Web page while waiting for the response. I
have used this behavior extensively. It is not suitable for all purposes,
but is especially good for validation-oriented Web service calls.

Jeffrey Hasan, MCSD
President, Bluestone Partners, Inc.