Typically, in a stateful environment, there is a mechanism to maintain state information during a session between two computer systems. Any state information communicated between two computer systems, such as a client computer and a server computer, can be preserved. However, in a stateless environment, there is no mechanism to maintain the state information. Further, each request from the client computer to the server computer is independent of another request, and accordingly, any state information of a first session is not available to a second session.
In an exemplary stateless environment of a login process, if the login process is required for each request to the server computer, then the login process is executed for each request. Multiple login processes for the same client computer is inefficient because the server computer manages multiple login processes. Further, the multiple login processes produce extra traffic over a network connection between the client computer and the server computer.
One possible solution to maintaining state information in a stateless environment, such as the World Wide Web, is to provide a database connected to the server computer. Thus, when a request is generated by clicking a link on a web browser from the client computer, any state information of the HTTP session is stored in the database. Subsequent requests can then access the state information stored in the database.