More About ASP.NET

ASP.NET includes a number of services that store state in databases and other storage media. For example, the session state service manages per-user session state by storing it in-process (in memory in the application domain of the host application), in memory in an external process (the "state server process"), or in a Microsoft SQL Server database, while the membership service stores user names, passwords, and other data in Microsoft SQL Server databases or Active Directory. For the majority of applications, the built-in storage options are sufficient. However, the need sometimes arises to store state in other media such as Oracle databases, DB2 databases, Microsoft SQL Server databases with custom schemas, XML files, or even data sources front-ended by Web services.

In ASP.NET 1.x, developers who wished to store state in alternative storage media were faced with the daunting prospect of rewriting large portions of ASP.NET. ASP.NET by contrast, introduces extreme flexibility to state storage. ASP.NET services that manage state do not interact directly with storage media; instead, they use providers as intermediaries,