concurrency - ASP.NET background worker thread -

a have asp.net 2.0 web application should allow sending emails. have windows service sends emails immediately. web application composes email message according template , put in msmq , service there.

the problem composing message template can take time , don't want user wait while message composed , passed service.

i think background process listen internal queue of notifications requests. if queue empty process nothing, message appeared begins process message. want have single process not create lot of threads.

currently idea write task scheduler, contain queue of notifications requests. when new item added queue scheduler checks whether process of sending notifications running. if yes, add request queue. otherwise creates new thread read queue until empty , perform notification requests.

my concern need sure thread not die after asp.net finish response client because parent thread thread. , question best way (or possible it)?

p.s. ok thread dies if iis recycles asp.net process due user inactivity.

i use class below base class. inherit class , put logic inside it. store instance of class in asp.net cache reference kept , can find it. purposes after inheriting class inside of executeprocess create infinite while loop "while(true)", put delay @ top/bottom of loop "thread.sleep(500)", or that. each loop check messages in queue.

imports system.threading  public mustinherit class longrunningprocess     public readonly property running() boolean                     return _running         end     end property      public readonly property success() boolean                     return _success         end     end property      public readonly property exception() exception                     return _exception         end     end property      public readonly property starttime() datetime                     return _starttime         end     end property      public readonly property endtime() datetime                     return _endtime         end     end property      public readonly property args() object                     return _args         end     end property       protected _running boolean = false     protected _success boolean = false     protected _exception exception = nothing     protected _starttime datetime = datetime.minvalue     protected _endtime datetime = datetime.minvalue     protected _args() object = nothing     protected withevents _thread thread      private _locker new object()      public sub execute(byval arguments object)         synclock (_locker)             'if process not running, then...'             if not _running                 'set running true'                 _running = true                 'set start time now'                 _starttime = datetime.now                 'set arguments'                 _args = arguments                 'prepare process in new thread'                 _thread = new thread(new threadstart(addressof executeprocess))                  'start thread'                 _thread.start()             end if         end synclock     end sub      protected mustoverride sub executeprocess() end class