Sitecore User Group: Session State and Sitecore xDB

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Session StateAnd

Sitecore xDBv.1.0

00. Purpose

01. What is Session State?

02. Importance of Session

State in Sitecore xDB

03. Sitecore xDB session

state types

Agenda

04. Consequences of incorrect

session state configuration

05. Configuration Guidelines

and Best Practices

06. Q&A

Purpose00

Consumers demand a single connected experience across multiple devices, whether they’re browsing from a desktop

computer, or searching from their mobile device.

Sitecore makes this consumer experience seamless

• Achieve accurate behavior

tracking using Sitecore xDB

and Session State.

• Enhance and optimize

customer experience based on

collected tracking information.

Let’s get started_

How can one…

What is Session State?

01

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Session state

What is a Session State?

• HTTP is a stateless protocol. Client and server do not save user information during multiple requests. Due to this

nature of the protocol, neither the client nor the browser can retain information between different request across the

web pages.

• Some web applications may have to track the user's progress from page to page

• ASP.NET session state enables you to store and retrieve values for a user as the user navigates ASP.NET pages in

a Web application.

• Additional data can be added into session state as one makes requests

For example: If I use my name to fill in a form, the application might store that as a session state value.

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Session state

How is a Session State stored?

‘in-proc’

• In process (InProc) is the default session state provider that comes with the Microsoft .NET

Framework.

• stores session state in memory on the Web server.

‘out-proc’

• Out of process (OutProc) session state means that you use an external ASP.NET session state

provider such as MongoDB or SQL Server.

• You can also use any custom provider that supports the Session_End event.

Importance of Session State in

Sitecore xDB

02

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Sitecore xDB and Session State

• Every time a visitor (contact) makes a request, such as triggering a campaign or a goal this information is

held in session state until the end of session, before making its way to the collection database.

• Session state is a way of identifying visitors (contacts) on your website by assigning them a unique session

ID and by using cookies.

• xDB makes one trip at the start of a session to identify the contact and a second at the end to save all the

session data back to the collection database.

This means fewer server trips are needed to write data back and forth to the collection database.

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Example 1: With xDB; it is possible to track two simultaneous contact sessions from two different

devices, such as from a desktop web browser or a mobile phone.

Example 2: With xDB; in a multi-content delivery cluster environment, you can share contact information

between content delivery instances to ensure that contacts stay connected to the particular cluster

where their interaction originated.

Tracking the session state of your contacts is important regardless of whether you install a standalone environment or a fully scalable environment.

Sitecore xDBsession state

types

03

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Sitecore xDB Session State Types

In Sitecore xDB, there are two types of session states:

• Private

• Shared

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PRIVATE Session State

• Private session state contains information about the interaction – such as pages visited and goals triggered on that device

• In private session state (ASP.NET), all analytics session data related to a specific interaction is collected and saved to the session state server.


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PRIVATE Session State

• The default provider is the in process (inProc) session provider which uses session state stored in-memory. This is suitable for small, standalone installations used for test or development purposes.

When you install Sitecore locally, private and shared session state are set to ‘in-proc’. Private

session state is configured where you would configure regular old ASP.NET session state –

in web.config.


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SHARED Session State

• Shared session state data includes all data that is unique to a contact and that can be shared across simultaneous sessions, such as contact details, devices and engagement automation states triggered.

• Contact data is collected and stored in a dedicated Shared session state store

• This information needs to remain accessible to other concurrent operations, for example, interactions and background processes, and can be shared across multiple sessions

Shared session state is configured in Sitecore.Analytics.Tracking.config.


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SHARED Session State

• This distinction (shared vs private) is required to support a single contact with two concurrent sessions on two different devices.

Scenario:You might start browsing a website on your laptop and continue on your phone whilst the laptop session is still ongoing . What happens if you moved to a different engagement plan state during the laptop session, or update the e-mail address that is stored in xDB? The laptop session is still ongoing, so those changes have not made it to the collection database yet.

This is where shared session state comes in. Contact data needs to be shared across multiple device sessions, and is therefore stored in shared session state.


Consequences of incorrect session

state configuration

04

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Laptop

Server

• I visit a website from my laptop and log in.

• My login details happen to be my unique identifier in the xDB, and it loads my contact information from the collection database.

• This website is backed by three content delivery servers – my session sticks to content delivery server #1 and will stay there for the duration of my session.

• Session state data is managed In-Proc; private and shared session state data is written to memory.

So far, so good.

Scenario: In-Proc session state across multiple CD nodes

Session XAttached to CD #1

Server

Server

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Laptop

Server

Consequences: of not using Out-Proc session state across multiple CD nodes

Session XAttached to CD #1

Server

Server

• I abandon my laptop and switch to my workstation – I log in, am identified a second time, and a new session “Y” starts.

• If my workstation session sticks to a different content delivery server, Sitecore has no way of knowing what is happening to my contact data on content delivery server #1 – because it has no way of accessing the memory (and therefore the shared session data) of another machine.

Workstation

Session YAttached to CD #2

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Conclusion

• Configuring session state is particularly important if you have deployed a multiserver, fully scalable environment with clusters of content delivery or processing servers.

• If you are using the xDB and you have more than one content delivery server per cluster, you MUST USE OUT-PROC SESSION STATE.

• In-Proc is not an option.

• This is all because of the need to support the sharing of session state information for a contact with two concurrent session on different devices.

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Session Lifetime (Shared)The following graph shows the lifetime of the sessions for a single contact and two concurrent interactions made from two different devices.

In this case, shared session state is still useful for handling concurrent visits by the same contact from different devices

Configuration Guidelines and Best Practices

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• Depending on which database system you want to use when you configure your session state database, you need to use a session state provider.

Sitecore comes with the following providers:• Sitecore ASP.NET Session State Provider for MongoDB• Sitecore ASP.NET Session State Provider for Microsoft SQL Server

• They also support the session end event that is required by the xDB to track website visits reliably.

• On content delivery servers, private session state must support the Session_End event but this is not required on content management servers.

• On content delivery servers shared session state must support the SessionEnd event. On content management servers shared session state is not supported.

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• Achieve accurate behavior

tracking using Sitecore xDB

and Session State.

• Enhance and optimize

customer experience based on

collected tracking information.


Q & A

06

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References

• https://doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform/81/setting_up_and_maintaining/xdb Session state Section

• https://doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform/81/setting_up_and_maintaining/xdb/session_state/session_state

https://doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform/81/setting_up_and_maintaining/xdb

https://doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform/81/setting_up_and_maintaining/xdb/session_state/session_state

valtech.com

where experiences are engineered

Session State

And

Sitecore xDB

987 Wellington St W., Suite 201

Ottawa, ON K1Y 2Y1 Harpreet Rana, PMP, ITIL

Senior Development Manager

Email: [email protected]

Thank You!

Twitter: @DigitalTech4u

Sitecore User Group: Session State and Sitecore xDB

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