Examining Asynchronous and Parallel Programming in.NET

Efficiently handling concurrent processes is essential to modern.NET development if you want to improve application responsiveness and performance. Asynchronous and parallel programming are two popular strategies for attaining concurrency. We’ll examine these methods in detail, contrast their features, and offer useful examples using C# code snippets in this blog post.

Using Parallel Programming

Utilizing the processing capabilities of multi-core CPUs, parallel programming divides work among several threads. Let’s look at an example where processing a sizable number of data components at once is required.

Mechanism: It utilizes the Parallel class or PLINQ (Parallel Language Integrated Query) to partition workloads and execute them in parallel.
Use Cases: Parallel programming is suitable for CPU-bound tasks that can benefit from parallel execution, such as data processing, image processing, and mathematical computations.
Programming Model: It follows a data-parallel programming model, where operations are applied concurrently to different data elements.
Key Features
- Explicit partitioning of workloads.
- Control over degree of parallelism.
- Synchronous execution.

<span class="token keyword keyword-using">using</span> <span class="token namespace">System</span><span class="token punctuation">;</span>
<span class="token keyword keyword-using">using</span> <span class="token namespace">System<span class="token punctuation">.</span>Linq</span><span class="token punctuation">;</span>
<span class="token keyword keyword-using">using</span> <span class="token namespace">System<span class="token punctuation">.</span>Threading<span class="token punctuation">.</span>Tasks</span><span class="token punctuation">;</span>

<span class="token keyword keyword-class">class</span> <span class="token class-name">Program</span>
<span class="token punctuation">{</span>
    <span class="token keyword keyword-static">static</span> <span class="token return-type class-name"><span class="token keyword keyword-void">void</span></span> <span class="token function">Main</span><span class="token punctuation">(</span><span class="token punctuation">)</span>
    <span class="token punctuation">{</span>
        <span class="token class-name"><span class="token keyword keyword-int">int</span><span class="token punctuation">[</span><span class="token punctuation">]</span></span> data <span class="token operator">=</span> Enumerable<span class="token punctuation">.</span><span class="token function">Range</span><span class="token punctuation">(</span><span class="token number">1</span><span class="token punctuation">,</span> <span class="token number">1000000</span><span class="token punctuation">)</span><span class="token punctuation">.</span><span class="token function">ToArray</span><span class="token punctuation">(</span><span class="token punctuation">)</span><span class="token punctuation">;</span>

        <span class="token comment">// Perform parallel processing using Parallel.ForEach</span>
        Parallel<span class="token punctuation">.</span><span class="token function">ForEach</span><span class="token punctuation">(</span>data<span class="token punctuation">,</span> ProcessData<span class="token punctuation">)</span><span class="token punctuation">;</span>

        Console<span class="token punctuation">.</span><span class="token function">WriteLine</span><span class="token punctuation">(</span><span class="token string">"Parallel processing completed."</span><span class="token punctuation">)</span><span class="token punctuation">;</span>
    <span class="token punctuation">}</span>

    <span class="token keyword keyword-static">static</span> <span class="token return-type class-name"><span class="token keyword keyword-void">void</span></span> <span class="token function">ProcessData</span><span class="token punctuation">(</span><span class="token class-name"><span class="token keyword keyword-int">int</span></span> <span class="token keyword keyword-value">value</span><span class="token punctuation">)</span>
    <span class="token punctuation">{</span>
        <span class="token comment">// Simulate processing task</span>
        Task<span class="token punctuation">.</span><span class="token function">Delay</span><span class="token punctuation">(</span><span class="token number">10</span><span class="token punctuation">)</span><span class="token punctuation">.</span><span class="token function">Wait</span><span class="token punctuation">(</span><span class="token punctuation">)</span><span class="token punctuation">;</span> <span class="token comment">// Emulate CPU-bound task</span>
        Console<span class="token punctuation">.</span><span class="token function">WriteLine</span><span class="token punctuation">(</span><span class="token interpolation-string"><span class="token string">$"Processed value: </span><span class="token interpolation"><span class="token punctuation">{</span><span class="token expression language-csharp"><span class="token keyword keyword-value">value</span></span><span class="token punctuation">}</span></span><span class="token string">"</span></span><span class="token punctuation">)</span><span class="token punctuation">;</span>
    <span class="token punctuation">}</span>
<span class="token punctuation">}</span>

using System;

using System.Linq;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

class Program

{

int[] data = Enumerable.Range(1, 1000000).ToArray();

// Perform parallel processing using Parallel.ForEach

Parallel.ForEach(data, ProcessData);

Console.WriteLine("Parallel processing completed.");

}

static void ProcessData(int value)

{

// Simulate processing task

Task.Delay(10).Wait(); // Emulate CPU-bound task

Console.WriteLine($"Processed value: {value}");

}

Asynchronous Programming
To increase application responsiveness, asynchronous programming focuses on non-blocking the execution of I/O-bound operations. Let’s look at an example where we have to asynchronously retrieve data from a remote API.

Mechanism: It utilizes asynchronous methods (async and await keywords) to initiate long-running operations without blocking the calling thread.
Use Cases: Asynchronous programming is suitable for I/O-bound tasks, such as network operations, file I/O, and database queries, where waiting for I/O completion would otherwise waste CPU cycles.
Programming Model: It follows an event-driven programming model, where callbacks or continuations handle the completion of asynchronous operations.
Key Features
- Non-blocking execution.
- Efficient utilization of system resources.
- Simplified error handling with Task and async/await.

Comparative Analysis

Concurrency Model: Parallel programming achieves concurrency by executing tasks concurrently on multiple threads, while asynchronous programming achieves concurrency by allowing tasks to overlap and run concurrently without blocking.
Resource Utilization: Parallel programming focuses on maximizing CPU utilization by utilizing multiple cores effectively, while asynchronous programming focuses on minimizing thread blocking and resource idle time.
Task Granularity: In parallel programming, tasks are often coarse-grained and compute-intensive, while in asynchronous programming, tasks are typically fine-grained and I/O-bound.
Programming Complexity: Asynchronous programming can be more complex due to the need to handle asynchronous operations, callbacks, and potential concurrency issues such as race conditions and deadlocks.

ASP.NET 8 Hosting Recommendation

ASP.NET is a powerful platform for creating web applications and services. You must be comfortable with JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and C# before developing a web application in ASP.NET. On the market, there are thousands of web hosting companies providing ASP.NET Hosting. But, only very few web hosting companies could provide high quality ASP.NET hosting solution.

ASP.NET is the best development language in Windows platform, which is released by Microsoft and widely used to build all types of dynamic Web sites and XML Web services. With this article, we’re going to help you to find the best ASP.NET Hosting solution in Europe based on reliability, features, price, performance and technical support. After we reviewed about 30+ ASP.NET hosting providers in Europe, our Best ASP.NET Hosting Award in Europe goes to HostForLIFE.eu, one of the fastest growing private companies and one of the most reliable hosting providers in Europe.