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Once you enable compression, session data will be GZip compressed when you use a state server or SQL server but will cost additional CPU cycles on your web server to perform the compression/decompression. This will result in smaller data being transmitted over the wire which will improve performance. Notice that while this reduces the actual session data it is still considered as bad practice to store big amounts of data into the session.

Darin Dimitrov 2010-09-04 15:51:58

so just adding allowCustomSqlDatabase="true" will improve performance? Will there be any issue in application by doing so?

Sujith E S 2010-09-04 15:55:45

It would be interesting to test for the performance of the two methods in the real scenario they are used. Compressing the session data will definitely improve the wire transfer time but at the same time will add some overhead for compressing/decompressing the data on each session read/write. One would need to check how big that overhead is.

CyberDude 2010-09-04 15:56:02

@Sujith E S, you don't need to modify anything other than this setting in your application to make this work. It is completely transparent. But whether it will significantly improve performance is difficult to estimate without performing some real load tests on your application. In theory yes, because this will reduce the data sent over the wire but the gain could be really small, not even noticeable.

Darin Dimitrov 2010-09-04 15:57:55

I had a look at a session table structure and the session items are serialized in binary form so I believe zipping a binary content won't bring down the size that much.

CyberDude 2010-09-04 16:04:30

@CyberDude, you are mistaken, it depends on what this binary contains. Remember that everything is binary, even a text file, try gziping a text file and you will see that it makes a difference, try gzipping a jpeg image and it won't change much.

Darin Dimitrov 2010-09-04 16:16:30

Yes, I know all that. But since we're talking about objects that are serialized there, do you really think the framework is serializing the session content as xml or another text based serialization storage?

CyberDude 2010-09-04 19:06:43

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Shrinking Session State in ASP.Net 4.0

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