We've got an internal application that is using DNN as the framework; all of our "application code" is implemented as dnn modules andd things generally work as expected with  only a couple of warts here and there.

We do have an issue, however. We've got some code that *must* execute when the application comes up. This does a number of things from initiallizing some data caches and more importantly establishing a connection to one or more servers (in the simplist case we need to be able to notify another system that we're alive). Ideally this would also be hooked on shutdown as well.

So far, we've been modifying the application_start/_end functions in global.asax.vb, but since this is the only modification we've got to make to the DNN code, we would greatly prefer not to do this but use a different mechanism.

So the question becomes, "how can I fire code when DNN starts up WITHOUT waiting for a user to do something?"

Any ideas and/or pointers would be most appreciated!

Thanks!

rob.

Actually, that's the problem-- I *have* to do things regardless of whether or not a user requests a page.

One example of a case: when the application starts I *have* to send a notification to an enterprise logging facility stating this; the same thing is done on page request, and ideally I'd do the same on the hour or something; but I have to make an entry that we're up. I also need to register with another application (and preferably de-register on exit), as well as several other items.

Currently I'm physically changing application_start, but would prefer  a better mechanism that doesn't require me to  keep changing the DNN source with every update.

Thanks!

rob.