Background Processing In ASP.NET Core With Hangfire

In this article, we will learn an easy way to perform background processing in .NET Core applications. A background process/job is a process that runs behind the scenes without user intervention. Hangfire is a simple, persistent, transparent, reliable, and efficient open-source library used to perform background processing in .NET and .NET Core applications.

Why Background Processing?

Lengthy operations like database updates
Invoice generation
Monthly reports
Automatic subscription renewal
Email upon sign-up

Background Jobs/Tasks

Fire and Forget
Delayed
Periodic and Scheduled
Continuations

Fire and Forget

These tasks happen only once. For example, sending a welcome email when a user signup.

Delayed

Delayed tasks are like fire and forget but do not execute them as soon as the action is taken instead, we define a time when the background job is going to run. For example when we want to send a voucher or discount to a user 5 hours after they signed up.

Periodic and Scheduled

These jobs are performed periodically based on a schedule, for example, generating marketing emails or generating invoices.

Continuations

Continuations are executed when their parent job has been finished.

Step 1

Create a new project as shown below,

Step 2

Let's install the Hangfire Nuget package as shown below,

Step 3

Open Startup.cs file and change as per the readme file from hangfire. Inside the configure services plese add the hangfire services as shown below,

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Hangfire;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.HttpsPolicy;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
namespace hangfire_webapi
{
public class Startup
{
public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
{
Configuration = configuration;
}
public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }
// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddHangfire(x => x.UseSqlServerStorage(@"Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=hangfire-webapi-db;Integrated Security=True;Pooling=False"));
services.AddHangfireServer();
services.AddControllers();
}
// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to configure the HTTP request pipeline.
public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
if (env.IsDevelopment())
{
app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
}
app.UseHttpsRedirection();
app.UseHangfireDashboard();
app.UseRouting();
app.UseAuthorization();
app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
endpoints.MapControllers();
});
}
}
}

Step 4

Let's configure the database open SQL server and create a database as shown below,

Step 5

Create a controller and schedule all types of background jobs,

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Hangfire;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
namespace hangfire_webapi.Controllers
{
[ApiController]
[Route("api/[controller]")]
public class HangfireController : ControllerBase
{
[HttpPost]
[Route("[action]")]
public IActionResult Welcome()
{
var jobId = BackgroundJob.Enqueue(() => SendWelcomeEmail("Welcome to our app"));
return Ok($"Job ID: {jobId}. Welcome email sent to the user!");
}
[HttpPost]
[Route("[action]")]
public IActionResult Discount()
{
int timeInSeconds = 30;
var jobId = BackgroundJob.Schedule(() => SendWelcomeEmail("Welcome to our app"), TimeSpan.FromSeconds(timeInSeconds));
return Ok($"Job ID: {jobId}. Discount email will be sent in {timeInSeconds} seconds!");
}
[HttpPost]
[Route("[action]")]
public IActionResult DatabaseUpdate()
{
RecurringJob.AddOrUpdate(() => Console.WriteLine("Database updated"), Cron.Minutely);
return Ok("Database check job initiated!");
}
[HttpPost]
[Route("[action]")]
public IActionResult Confirm()
{
int timeInSeconds = 30;
var parentJobId = BackgroundJob.Schedule(() => Console.WriteLine("You asked to be unsubscribed!"), TimeSpan.FromSeconds(timeInSeconds));
BackgroundJob.ContinueJobWith(parentJobId, () => Console.WriteLine("You were unsubscribed!"));
return Ok("Confirmation job created!");
}
public void SendWelcomeEmail(string text)
{
Console.WriteLine(text);
}
}
}

Let's test through Postman,

Now we can see the hangfire Dashboard as below,

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed how to schedule background jobs/tasks using .Net core, Hangfire, and SQL server. I hope you all enjoyed reading this and learned from it. For better understanding download the source code.