Session Managing

[scripter73]

Hi,

General question for everyone. What are some of the best programming methods for managing state between pages if you have a lot of data you need to keep track of ( data elements numbering in the low hundreds)?

But let's say you'll have maybe 4500-5000 users at any one time and you need to keep track of these elements. Think employment application.

I say use HTTPSession, but do you have any advice on tips and tricks for keeping system memory drain low?

Thanks in advance.

scripter73




Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.

 

[sedj]

State management comes down to three methods :

1) keep it in the URL
2) keep it in a session object
3) persist the data via a database, storing the key in one of the above 2 methods.

You have to think about how big your *session* objects will be, and the hits involved in saving/retrieving them. If memory is of no consegunce and you can run with 2+Gb of it, then massive objects won't be a problem. However, if they are of ridiculous size, then you should maybe think about storing them in a db.
Remember that HttpSession objects are nothing special. Tomcat uses a HashMap to store session objects, and the overhead is fairly low in retrieving them. A HttpSession object (itself in essence a HashMap) is stored in a global container variable (usually itself also a HashMap) and accessed via retrieving the browser Cookie id (or URL if cookies are disabled). Now, weighed against the overhead of making a network db call (even if pooled), then HttpSession is probably your best choice (as long as RAM is plentiful).

 

[scripter73]

Thanks for the advice.

scripter73


Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.