Measuring serialized session "size"

[Bill Cohagan]

We are attempting to convert an already existing application over to using
multiple worker processes; thus we need to store state via session state
server rather than in process. Since this app previously used in process
state there was little back pressure against storing objects in the session.
Now we're paying the price because serialization sucks in referenced objects
resulting in possibly huge state storage and serialize/deserialize costs.

What would *really* be helpful would be having some way to quantify this;
i.e., a way to measure how much serialized state is being managed per page.
That would allow us to verify that this is indeed a problem and to measure
our progress towards eliminating the problem as we selectively remove
objects from the session object and/or provide custom serializers. We can't
find any useful counters in the performance monitor unfortunately.

Are there any tools or techniques we might use to get at this sort of data?

Thanks,
Bill

[bruce barker]

the easiest is to use the SQLServer session manager, and run queries. the
serialized data is stored in a column by session. you could add an update
trigger to copy the data (or size only) on update to get history of session
size per session.

you can write unit tests to test serialize/deserialize times.

-- bruce (sqlwork.com)
"Bill Cohagan" <co*****@teraXNOSPAMXquest.com> wrote in message
news:Or****************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
| We are attempting to convert an already existing application over to using
| multiple worker processes; thus we need to store state via session state
| server rather than in process. Since this app previously used in process
| state there was little back pressure against storing objects in the
session.
| Now we're paying the price because serialization sucks in referenced
objects
| resulting in possibly huge state storage and serialize/deserialize costs.
|
| What would *really* be helpful would be having some way to quantify this;
| i.e., a way to measure how much serialized state is being managed per
page.
| That would allow us to verify that this is indeed a problem and to measure
| our progress towards eliminating the problem as we selectively remove
| objects from the session object and/or provide custom serializers. We
can't
| find any useful counters in the performance monitor unfortunately.
|
| Are there any tools or techniques we might use to get at this sort of
data?
|
| Thanks,
| Bill
|
|