a.Client Session State Pattern

  1. Motivation

      1. Stores session state on the client.

  2. Summary

      1. Even the most server-oriented designs need at least a little Client Session State, if only to hold a session identifier.

      2. With some applications you can consider putting all of the session data on the client, in which case the client sends the full set of session data with each request and the server sends back the full session state with each response. This allows the server to be completely stateless.

  1. When to Use

    1. When you need an stateless solution.

  1. Specific Considerations

      1. The arguments against Client Session State vary exponentially with the amount of data involved. With just a few fields everything works nicely. With large amounts of data the issues of where to store the data and the time cost of transferring everything with every request become prohibitive. This is especially true if your stars include an http client.

      2. There's also the security issue. Any data sent to the client is vulnerable to being looked at and altered. Encryption is the only way to stop this, but encrypting and decrypting with each request are a performance burden. Without encryption you have to be sure you aren't sending anything you would rather hide from prying eyes. Fingers can pry too, so don't assume that what got sent out is the same as what gets sent back. Any data coming back will need to be completely revalidated.

      3. You almost always have to use Client Session State for session identification. Fortunately, this should be just one number, which won't burden any of the above schemes. You should still be concerned about session stealing, which is what happens when a malicious user changes his session ID to see if he can snag someone else's session. Most platforms come up with a random session ID to reduce this risk; if not run, a simple session ID through a hash.

  1. References