Do asynchronous operations in ASP.NET MVC use a thread from ThreadPool on .NET 4

Question

After this question, it makes me comfortable when using async operations in ASP.NET MVC. So, I wrote two blog posts on that:

• My Take on

Answer 1

Yes - all threads come from the thread-pool. Your MVC app is already multi-threaded, when a request comes in a new thread will be taken from the pool and used to service the request. That thread will be 'locked' (from other requests) until the request is fully serviced and completed. If there is no thread available in the pool the request will have to wait until one is available.

If you have async controllers they still get a thread from the pool but while servicing the request they can give up the thread, while waiting for something to happen (and that thread can be given to another request) and when the original request needs a thread again it gets one from the pool.

The difference is that if you have a lot of long-running requests (where the thread is waiting for a response from something) you might run out of threads from the the pool to service even basic requests. If you have async controllers, you don't have any more threads but those threads that are waiting are returned to the pool and can service other requests.

A nearly real life example... Think of it like getting on a bus, there's five people waiting to get on, the first gets on, pays and sits down (the driver serviced their request), you get on (the driver is servicing your request) but you can't find your money; as you fumble in your pockets the driver gives up on you and gets the next two people on (servicing their requests), when you find your money the driver starts dealing with you again (completing your request) - the fifth person has to wait until you are done but the third and fourth people got served while you were half way through getting served. This means that the driver is the one and only thread from the pool and the passengers are the requests. It was too complicated to write how it would work if there was two drivers but you can imagine...

Without an async controller, the passengers behind you would have to wait ages while you looked for your money, meanwhile the bus driver would be doing no work.

So the conclusion is, if lots of people don't know where their money is (i.e. require a long time to respond to something the driver has asked) async controllers could well help throughput of requests, speeding up the process from some. Without an aysnc controller everyone waits until the person in front has been completely dealt with. BUT don't forget that in MVC you have a lot of bus drivers on a single bus so async is not an automatic choice.