Alternative solution to HostingEnvironment.QueueBackgroundWorkItem in .NET Core

Question

We are working with .NET Core Web Api, and looking for a lightweight solution to log requests with variable intensity into database, but don't want client's to wait for the saving process.
Unfortunately there's no HostingEnvironment.QueueBackgroundWorkItem(..) implemented in dnx, and Task.Run(..) is not safe.
Is there any elegant solution?

Answer 1

Update December 2019: ASP.NET Core 3.0 supports an easy way to implement background tasks using Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Worker. It's excellent and works really well.

As @axelheer mentioned IHostedService is the way to go in .NET Core 2.0 and above.

I needed a lightweight like for like ASP.NET Core replacement for HostingEnvironment.QueueBackgroundWorkItem, so I wrote DalSoft.Hosting.BackgroundQueue which uses.NET Core's 2.0 IHostedService.

PM> Install-Package DalSoft.Hosting.BackgroundQueue

In your ASP.NET Core Startup.cs:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
   services.AddBackgroundQueue(onException:exception =>
   {

   });
}

To queue a background Task just add BackgroundQueue to your controller's constructor and call Enqueue.

public EmailController(BackgroundQueue backgroundQueue)
{
   _backgroundQueue = backgroundQueue;
}

[HttpPost, Route("/")]
public IActionResult SendEmail([FromBody]emailRequest)
{
   _backgroundQueue.Enqueue(async cancellationToken =>
   {
      await _smtp.SendMailAsync(emailRequest.From, emailRequest.To, request.Body);
   });

   return Ok();
}