In my .NET web app, I keep basic user info in a user session object. I also usually keep a director class in the session; which is basically just has info about whatever thing it being worked on on that screen (like a customer id).
I am trying to keep from adding a ton of sessions. I also want to make sure at any given time ONLY the sessions that are necessary are in memory.
This means I need an effective way of managing my session variables. Any suggestions?
What I normally do is only keep the id of an object in Session and keep the data in a caching layer in front of the database. That way, you keep your session fairly small but most data can still be retrieved efficiently if the item is in cache. This has usually worked well for me.