With several articles out there about sharing session across multiple servers on databases, there seemed to be a lack of examples that used SQL Server to do it. Enrico Zimuel has helped to solve that problem with his new post on using Zend Server and SQL Server to persist the session data.

Wade Arnold has a blog post on the session support in Zend_Amf_Server. In his post, he explains how sessions can be used in a Flex application (with example of how to create, regenerate and destroy sessions) and he also has some useful tips on how to secure session identifiers in Flex applications. A useful article for Flex/ZF developers!

Since HTTP uses a stateless request-response method to transfer web pages, all but the simplest web applications need a way to store data between requests. The best way to accomplish this in PHP is to use sessions. A session identifier is kept client-side in a cookie, and is matched up with data kept on the server, which is made available in scripts through the $_SESSION superglobal. By default, session data is stored on the filesystem in individual files. This works fine for most people, but when it comes to storing session data, PHP has several options available. This article will discuss some of the built-in options for session storage and also show you how to write your own session handler.

Unlike PHP 3, PHP 4.0 has built-in capabilities to handle session management. The session management functionality in PHP 4.0 is easy to use, powerful and open for custom modifications. Creating sessions allows you to keep track of the actions of a particular user over the period of time she is viewing your web site.

To associate session data with a user, you need a session identity number, that is, a key that ties the user to his data. This tutorial discusses how to open sessions, track session data, and clear the data when you no longer need it.