How to run a background task in a servlet based web application?

I'm using Java and I want to keep a servlet continuously running in my application, but I'm not getting how to do it. My servlet has a method which gives counts of the user from a database on a daily basis as well as the total count of the users from the whole database. So I want to keep the servlet continuously running for that.

Your problem is that you misunderstand the purpose of the servlet. It's intented to act on HTTP requests, nothing more. You want just a background task which runs once on daily basis.

###EJB available? Use @Schedule

If your environment happen to support EJB (i.e. a real Java EE server such as WildFly, JBoss, TomEE, Payara, GlassFish, etc), then use @Schedule instead. Here are some examples:

@Singleton
public class BackgroundJobManager {

    @Schedule(hour="0", minute="0", second="0", persistent=false)
    public void someDailyJob() {
        // Do your job here which should run every start of day.
    }

    @Schedule(hour="*/1", minute="0", second="0", persistent=false)
    public void someHourlyJob() {
        // Do your job here which should run every hour of day.
    }

    @Schedule(hour="*", minute="*/15", second="0", persistent=false)
    public void someQuarterlyJob() {
        // Do your job here which should run every 15 minute of hour.
    }

    @Schedule(hour="*", minute="*", second="*/5", persistent=false)
    public void someFiveSecondelyJob() {
        // Do your job here which should run every 5 seconds.
    }

} 

Yes, that's really all. The container will automatically pickup and manage it.

###EJB unavailable? Use ScheduledExecutorService

If your environment doesn't support EJB (i.e. you're not using not a real Java EE server, but a barebones servletcontainer such as Tomcat, Jetty, etc), then use ScheduledExecutorService. This can be initiated by a ServletContextListener. Here's a kickoff example:

@WebListener
public class BackgroundJobManager implements ServletContextListener {

    private ScheduledExecutorService scheduler;

    @Override
    public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
        scheduler = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
        scheduler.scheduleAtFixedRate(new SomeDailyJob(), 0, 1, TimeUnit.DAYS);
        scheduler.scheduleAtFixedRate(new SomeHourlyJob(), 0, 1, TimeUnit.HOURS);
        scheduler.scheduleAtFixedRate(new SomeQuarterlyJob(), 0, 15, TimeUnit.MINUTES);
        scheduler.scheduleAtFixedRate(new SomeFiveSecondelyJob(), 0, 5, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    }

    @Override
    public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
        scheduler.shutdownNow();
    }

}

Where the job classes look like this:

public class SomeDailyJob implements Runnable {

    @Override
    public void run() {
        // Do your daily job here.
    }

}

public class SomeHourlyJob implements Runnable {

    @Override
    public void run() {
        // Do your hourly job here.
    }

}

public class SomeQuarterlyJob implements Runnable {

    @Override
    public void run() {
        // Do your quarterly job here.
    }

}

public class SomeFiveSecondelyJob implements Runnable {

    @Override
    public void run() {
        // Do your quarterly job here.
    }

}

##Do not ever think about using java.util.Timer/java.lang.Thread in a Java EE / Servlet based environment

Last but not least, never directly use java.util.Timer and/or java.lang.Thread in Java EE. This is recipe for trouble. An elaborate explanation can be found in this JSF-related answer on the same question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7499534/spawning-threads-in-a-jsf-managed-bean-for-scheduled-tasks-using-a-timer.

I would suggest using a library like quartz in order to run the task at regular intervals. What does the servlet really do ? It sends you a report ?

You can use cron4j. http://www.sauronsoftware.it/projects/cron4j/manual.php

Implement two classes and call startTask() in main.

public void startTask()
{
    // Create a Runnable
    Runnable task = new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            while (true) {
                runTask();
            }
        }
    };

    // Run the task in a background thread
    Thread backgroundThread = new Thread(task);
    // Terminate the running thread if the application exits
    backgroundThread.setDaemon(true);
    // Start the thread
    backgroundThread.start();
}

public void runTask()
{
    try {
        // do something... 		   
        Thread.sleep(1000);

    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

In a production system that may have multiple non-jee containers running. Use anot enterprise scheduler like Quartz scheduler which can be configured to use a database for task maamgememt.