What’s the Best Azure Service for Continuous Polling in Background Workers?

Another idea could be to set up a polling job with a scheduled trigger that sends messages to a queue. Alternatively, modify your existing code that inserts tasks into the database to send messages to a message broker directly. You could also adapt your jobs to listen for messages using an event trigger. More on scheduled jobs [here](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-apps/jobs?tabs=azure-cli#scheduled-jobs)!

You might want to check out Durable Functions! They can be triggered on a timer and are designed to handle long-running tasks. Also, consider Azure Data Factory or Azure Batch as options. There is some discussion around Azure Container Apps and long-running jobs, and while it can work, you might face config issues. Here's a [link](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/durable/durable-functions-overview?tabs=in-process%2Cnodejs-v3%2Cv1-model&pivots=csharp#async-http) for more info on Durable Functions.

I'm curious, what’s triggering the updates in your database? Understanding that could help point towards a better solution.

If you haven't already, look into Change Event Streaming with Azure SQL. You could send insert events to an Event Hub and then process them using Azure Functions. It's definitely more complex but worth considering for a scalable design. Check out [this article](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/track-changes/change-event-streaming/overview?view=sql-server-ver17) for details.

You could have your SQL DB make an API call to a REST endpoint for processing tasks. However, I’m not a big fan of having databases make API calls. I’d suggest rethinking the architecture to make use of Azure Logic Apps, which might handle this type of workflow better. More info [here](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/concepts-schedule-automated-recurring-tasks-workflows).