Summary

ASP.NET provides new ways to manage session state and application state. In this chapter we discussed session state management using classic ASP and contrasted it with the new capabilities offered by ASP.NET. We reviewed the three modes of managing session state in ASP.NET, which are InProc, StateServer, and SQLServer. Many texts refer to the performance degradation you can expect to see in your application when you manage session state. However, you rarely see performance numbers that back up these statements. To address this issue, we conducted performance stress tests of a Web page using different session state management modes. The results showed that the effect on performance is not clear-cut and that you may actually recognize performance benefits. Next we discussed application state management in ASP.NET. There are effectively two kinds of information that need to be stored at the application level: transient information and permanent information. You can store transient information using the HttpApplicationState class, and you can store permanent information in the Web.config file. After that, we discussed the important role that Global.asax plays in ASP.NET applications. This class provides numerous event handlers and allows you to execute code at various points in the request process. We showed how to extend the functionality of the Global.asax file by writing a custom base class. Finally, we ended the chapter with design considerations for implementing session and application state management.