Is this a safe way of keeping an asp.net application alive without getting recycled?

Question

I ve started a timer to visit my application every 20 minuates in Applicaiton_start in global.asax.

void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) 
{
System.Timers.Timer tm = new System.Timers.Timer(20 * 60 * 1000);
tm.Elapsed += new System.Timers.ElapsedEventHandler(tm_Elapsed);
}

void tm_Elapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
System.Net.WebRequest rqst = System.Net.WebRequest.Create("MySite URL");
rqst.GetResponse();
}

Is this a safe way or anyother ways. I am doing so to execute schedule jobs using quartz.net...

Answer 1

While autopinging your application is one way of keeping it alive you could also configure the application pool in IIS to not recycle:

Just uncheck the Shutdown worker processes after being idle for checkbox. Also on the Recycling tab you will find other useful options.

Answer 2

You should just be able to modify IIS to do this. IIS is set up to take down applications after 'x' minutes of inactivity. Your code would probably stop the site being taken down due to inactivity.

However, IIS is also by default set to recycle applications every 'x' minutes/hours. Your code would not stop this. It happens regardless of activity. It is designed to clear up any memory leaks, etc. so if you switch this off (you can do that in IIS too) then you must be carefull that your sites performance does not degrade over time.