ASP.Net Persisting Data Across the Application

Question

How Can I persist a User-Specific data for an ASP.Net application.

I tried Session Variable - Not good when the worker process recycles.

I need something that can be accessed GLOBALLY by any class of my application.

Advice most welcome.

I tried to utilize asp.net session State Server but I got some DLLs crashing because they are Unserializable.

Is there any other way to have a persistent variable across the application?

Answer 1

Store Data in a Database (such as SQL Server).

Answer 2

ASP.NET session state can be configured to persist to a database.

Here is a tutorial on how to set that up.

Answer 3

You could use the Profile Provider with a SQL database as your backing store.

See this MSDN Article

Answer 4

Theres nothing you can really do about the process recycling. If you use the Cache smartly to retain information in a more global sense but you still have the same worker process limitation.

I try and design my app in a n-tier setup with business entity objects. The factory methods for my objects use the cache kind of like a lazy instantation pattern. If its in the cahce, pull it. If not, put it into the cache for next time.

i.e

MyAppsNameSpace.MyBusinessLayerNameSpace.MyObject.GetObject(objectID)

now when this returns my object, it may be from the cache or may not, if the object is under high usage then it will be probably be cached.

This can be used throughout your entire app and because the caching mechanism is maintained centrally you dont really have to worry about it.

Answer 5

You can change the Session State Server to not be in process which will make it far more stable and also seperate it from the worker process (You'll need to be able to start the Asp.NET State Service on the server if it's not already running)

<sessionState mode="StateServer" stateConnectionString="tcpip=127.0.0.1:42424" sqlConnectionString="data source=127.0.0.1;Trusted_Connection=yes" cookieless="false" timeout="20"/>

Also if you need to share it across applications in the same domain you should be able to give them the same machine key

Answer 6

You should use Session. You can access session state globally in a class like this...

HttpContext.Current.Session

To avoid losing sessions by the worker process recycling, use StateServer mode.

Answer 7

If you lose data when the worker process recycles then you should stop using the InProc persistance mode for the Session. Use StateServer or SQL Server. Ultimately you could build your own session persistance module if neither satisfies you.