Need to setup SqlDependency per-user - asp.net

Question

System Scope
I have a database with a lot of users (over 50,000). At any time there may be 100-200 people logged in and actively using the system. The system is ASP.NET MVC 4, with Sql Server 2008 backend. For data access we are using Dapper.
Requirements
I am trying to build a notification component that has the following attributes:
When a new record is created in the [dbo.Assignment] table (with OwnerId = [Currently logged in user]), I need to update the Cache inside of an asp.net application.
I don't want to receive any notifications for users who are not actively online, as this would be a massive waste of resources)
Specific Questions:
Should I be using SqlDependency, SqlCacheDependency, or SqlNotification?
Assuming that we are using SqlDependency, how would I remove the Dependency.OnChange handler when user has logged out.
Any code samples would be much appreciated, as this has consumed the whole part of my day trying to figure it out.
Here is the current code
public IList<Notification> GetNotifications(string userName)
{
Cache o = HttpContext.Current.Cache;
if (o["Notifications_" + userName] == null)
{
var notifications = new List<Notification>();
using (var cn = new SqlConnection(getSQLString()))
{
using (var cmd = cn.CreateCommand())
{
var parameter = new SqlParameter("Employee_Cd", SqlDbType.Char, 30) { Value = userName };
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
cmd.CommandText = "Notifications.Assignments";
cmd.Parameters.Add(parameter);
cmd.Notification = null;
var dependency = new SqlCacheDependency(cmd);
cn.Open();
using (var dr = cmd.ExecuteReader())
{
// this is where you build your cache
while (dr.Read())
{
var obj = new Notification();
obj.Name = dr["Name"].ToString();
notifications.Add(obj);
}
dr.Close();
}
HttpContext.Current.Cache.Insert("Notifications_" + userName,
notifications,
dependency,
DateTime.Now.AddDays(1D),
Cache.NoSlidingExpiration);
}
}
}
return (List<Notification>) o["Notifications_" + userName];
}
Note: I am not experienced with using SqlDependencies, as I have never really needed to use them until today. It's very possible that I am overlooking something important.

Answer 1

I didn’t really use any of these techniques but here are some alternatives that you can create yourself that will do the job just as good.
If you need to update cache every time new record is inserted into dbo.Assignment table why not create OnInserted event in your data access layer that will notify the cache object to refresh?
Another thing you can to is to create INSERT trigger in Assignemt table and another table that can look like this dbo.Cache (LastUpdate datetime). Trigger will insert value into Cache table and your application cache can ping this table like every X mins or X seconds to see if cache update is required.
If you need to refresh the cache immediately after record is inserted triggers might be an overkill because you’d have to ping Cache table probably every second but if you have 200 online users at a time that probably won’t make much of a difference in DB performance.
There is a lot of work if you want to implement these for a lot of tables but since this is only one table this might turn out to be faster way than implementing built in cache mechanisms.