Programming ASP.NET AJAX

Chapter 7. Using the ASP.NET AJAX Profile Service

User profiles are storage mechanisms that can store data for both known (authenticated) and unknown (anonymous) users on the server. ASP.NET 2.0 comes with support for user profiles utilizing a type-safe API that provides easy read and write access to this server-side data.

Of course, user profiles are neither a new idea nor something particularly special. HTTP cookies, for example, provide a means to maintain data on the client. For performance reasons though, most profile schemes do not store the full complement of user information on the client, but only use a unique identifier (ID). This ID is then sent back and forth between client and server. The ID serves as (primary) key for a data store to retrieve the actual information. Microsoft began providing mechanisms to facilitate this starting with Windows NT and ASP (Active Server Pages). But the ASP.NET 2.0 implementation incorporates several advantages over previous offerings, including the aforementioned type-safe access.

ASP.NET AJAX comes with a JavaScript API that allows client-side code to access server-side profile data. As a result, JavaScript can read and write profile data, enabling it to create dynamic, profile-driven web pages while using as few page refresh cycles as possible. In the background, the JavaScript code uses the web services support of ASP.NET AJAX to call a server component, which then accesses the profile data. As with many other components of ASP.NET ...