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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-27T03:57:29+00:00

I have a screen where a user selects database source from a drop down.

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I have a screen where a user selects database source from a drop down. Once that’s selected I would like the information passed onto other screens so the user does not keep having to select.

How can I pass information such as this from one screen to another? Note that the information is just very small things like:

DatasourceID - 2 characters
SubjectID - 2 characters

As I am running on Azure can I assume the best place to store this would be on the client side? I saw one implementation that stored data like this:

Session["abc"] = "def";
if (Session["abc"] != null)
etc ...

Is this the best way or am I missing something. Also how would the above work when the page could be served by different servers each time around? Does the above store information locally?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The Session is stored on the Server Side. Now in Azure you have a few options where exactly it is stored. It depends on what you would like to do with this datasource. If this is something you just need in the following screen, you can store it in TempData which is stored in the session. It is kept there until you read it.

    Now you have these options to store the session state:

    1. in Azure AppFabric Cache
    2. in a SQL Azure DB
    3. in blob storage

    Azure AppFabric Caching has got a Session provider which is very easy to set up. You can just create a new cache in the Azure portal and get the required web.config entries by clicking the according button on the toolbar. this is also explained in detail here.

    Using that you can store things in the Session out of process. The downside is that it’s a bit expensive (about 45$/month for a 128 MB cache). So the alternative would be to store session state in SQL Azure. There’s a Session provider for SQL Azure.

    Here’s a link to a great introduction by Scott Hanselman to the ASP.NET universal providers. If you’re not using membership, then you just need to setup System.Web.Providers.DefaultSessionStateProvider.

    Just make sure you point the connection string to your SQL Azure DB. Note: You must set MultipleActiveResultSets=True in the connection string, so be sure to add it back if you’ve copied the SQL Azure connection string from the portal.

    Then there is also a session provider for blog storage in the training Kit, available with a sample app at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazure/Windows-Azure-ASPNET-03d5dc14.
    I believe it is unsupported by MS.

    Hope this helps.

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