How to create multiple threads in Windows azure worker role

Question

I want to do multiple operations in a single worker role. How to create threads in worker role?

Thereof

Answer 1

You could add multiple workers in the WorkerRole::OnStart() as described here http://www.31a2ba2a-b718-11dc-8314-0800200c9a66.com/2010/12/running-multiple-threads-on-windows.html

    public class WorkerRole : ThreadedRoleEntryPoint
    {
        public override void Run()
        {
            // This is a sample worker implementation. Replace with your logic.
            Trace.WriteLine("Worker Role entry point called", "Information");

            base.Run();
        }

        public override bool OnStart()
        {
            List<WorkerEntryPoint> workers = new List<WorkerEntryPoint>();

            workers.Add(new ImageSizer());
            workers.Add(new ImageSizer());
            workers.Add(new ImageSizer());
            workers.Add(new HouseCleaner());
            workers.Add(new TurkHandler());
            workers.Add(new Crawler());
            workers.Add(new Crawler());
            workers.Add(new Crawler());
            workers.Add(new Gardener());
            workers.Add(new Striker());

            return base.OnStart(workers.ToArray());
        }
    }



   internal class Striker : WorkerEntryPoint
    {
        public override void Run()
        {
            while (true)
            {
                // Do Some Work

                Thread.Sleep(100);
            }
        }
    }

Keturahkeung

Can you provide a reference for your claim that Azure will kill threads after 30s? In this Microsoft example they are creating threads in Role.Run(). – Arianna

This may be a problem that I have with my environment that causes an unhandled exception that crashes my threads. – Keturahkeung

Answer 2

In a nutshell, it's no different then in any other console application.

Cuttlebone

Actually, this is false. Creating threads using Task.Factory or Thread.Start within a Azure Worker role is bad as Azure will kill the thread after about 30 seconds. – Keturahkeung

Inge, sorry, but I pretty sure you're wrong. At Lokad, we have been in production for 2 years now on Azure, and Lokad.Cloud (code.google.com/p/lokad-cloud), the underlying framework, extensively use Thread.Start to spin new threads. – Crippling

Yep, and Azure computing istance doesn't inherently kill any threads. Long running SQL Azure connections however may very well be killed. – Cuttlebone

Answer 3

Two different examples that do this:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff803372.aspx (scroll to "Inside the implementation"

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff966485.aspx (scroll to "inside the implementation"). This example uses the TPL available in .NET 4.0 for parallel task scheduling.

Mede

An updated link would be this - msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff803365.aspx (5 – Executing Background Tasks) – Dara