Is there any other way to store data in web application

Question

We use ViewState to store data that is being edited by users. However, ViewState just got too large so we really want something that is faster.

We considered session, but it has to be manually collected when users travel among pages.

Does anybody has suggestions?

update: Actually I am using Asp.net. They reason we do not want to use session is: 1. We don't need to carry our data among pages. 2. When developer put something into session, he has to remember to delete it if it is no longer useful. Otherwise, the session will get bigger and bigger. This is kind of trival.

Answer 1

You can look into Conversations.

http://evolutionarygoo.com/blog/?p=68

http://code.google.com/p/google-guice/issues/detail?id=5

Answer 2

You can use the database as a alternate to the session store. This would scale in terms of the size of the data stored, and if you use an appropriate caching strategy you can reduce the overhead of retrieving the data a great deal.

Answer 3

You say you want the data stored server side and its should be automatically available?

You could trick the viewstate into storing its data in session rather than a hidden field by using this technique:

• http://aspadvice.com/blogs/robertb/archive/2005/11/16/13835.aspx

You might find this article interesting as well which shows another technique to store your viewstate server side:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc188774.aspx#S6

Despite the initial complexity of getting this set up I think it would be the best solution because then you don't have to change your code throughout, it can still use ViewState as normal without realising this is now saved on the server.