Summary

In this chapter you learned about the many ways you can maintain state on a Web site. In even the smallest of Web applications, you will most likely need to use one or more of these techniques. Storing state information in SQL Server offers flexibility and performance, although sometimes you might need to use a combination of the techniques presented. Being aware of all the possibilities is important, and you might consider each of these options as you plan for state management in your own applications. Here is some key information you should take away from this chapter:

• State is maintained using Session variables, SQL Server, and the ASP.NET State Server service.

• The .NET Framework allows you to code your application using Session variables yet change their method of storage using simple configuration file changes.

• Using SQL Server is probably the best way to manage state in terms of flexibility and performance.