13.2. Advanced user state

Session state is considered the simplest form of per-session state handling. In advanced scenarios, you’ll need more features, like the ability to store the state and have it available for different sessions performed by the same user. Session state is limited in this area, but ASP.NET has a specific feature that addresses this problem.

The Profile API was first introduced with ASP.NET version 2.0, as part of the Provider Model, which brings more extensibility to the platform. We took a look at the Provider Model in chapter 5, when we discussed the Membership and Roles APIs. The same concepts apply to the Profile API. This API is composed of two pieces: