My past development history has all been .net console apps (software plugins), a few forms apps but recently some Asp.net forms and MVC stuff. Only basic, only really for my own development or occasional use at work.

I've come to a point where I would like a service running on a computer, perhaps not a service in the true sense of the word but at least a forms app that is doing some sort of background function, sending TCP data somewhere, responding to a few events at certain times etc.

I would now like to configure this service over an ASP.net site, to set a couple of parameters or the like for the service application rather than access through the forms app.

I'm struggling to see how I should make the two talk, should I be having a database between the two so as to call the DB from the web page and query it from the plugin? Should I have some sort of API service created in my service app that can respond to calls from Asp? Some sort of IPC?

I'm genuinely a bit lost...can anyone guide me as to what to do? Many Thanks...