Question

I already have a database with about 20 fields of userprofile information. Im not sure what the advantage would be for creating a custom provider instead. Can someone explain what is the benefit? thanks.

Answer 1

There may not be any benefit for you.

Profiles allow you to manage user
information without requiring you to
create and maintain your own database.

You’ve already got that covered, so the only other major advantage that I can think of is that profiles provide are an easy way of handling migration of anonymous usage data to the user’s profile when they log in. There are events that you can hook into for handling that with any profile provider, whether it’s custom or not.

A solid read through the documentation on profiles might help you decide if there is any advantage for your app.