Life time of DbContext in a long-running process

Question

Say I have a long-running process (e.g. Windows service) which needs to access a database from multiple threads.

DbContext is not thread safe, also it is a good idea not to keep it around for a long time (seems that an accepted best practice in the web environment is to create a new context for each request).

Based on EF docs, Contexts are expected to be short-lived and discarded, and as such have been implemented to be very lightweight and reutilize metadata whenever possible, so it seems like creating a new DB context for each database operation might be a way to go under these circumstances, but it does seem a bit excessive.

Thoughts?

@Sampath There's none at the moment. Deciding on a best way to write it. — Evgeni, Oct 18 '16 at 16:24
Keeping DbContext in a long run is not a good idea - memory leaks, overflow are possible, plus change tracking might bring you funky results. Creating and disposing DbContext as you need is a pretty good idea — Red, Oct 18 '16 at 18:33
Also check this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5940225/fastest-way-of-inserting-in-entity-framework — Red, Oct 18 '16 at 18:34
"*Thoughts?*" pretty much brands this question as Too Broad. — Jean-François Corbett, Jan 11 '18 at 12:12

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 11 '18 at 10:36

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Short-running, for sure, but not only because of DB considerations, also because of application architecture: if your architecture is Clean Code (as per Bob Martin), a Website or Windows Service would not know anything about the database, they would simply create an Application Service as & when required. The Application Service(s) should be responsible for controlling the lifecycle of the database session, and all the bits they get from it. Works really well for me.

answered Jan 11 '18 at 10:36

Chalky

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Why should an application know more about the database when the context lives longer? You only shift the problem from context life cycle to Application Service life cycle. I don't think the context's lifespan itself has any bearing on separation of concerns. – Gert Arnold Jan 11 '18 at 12:31

Life time of DbContext in a long-running process

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