Session (computer Science)

Session (computer Science)

In computer science, in particular networking, a session is a semi-permanent interactive information interchange, also known as a dialogue, a conversation or a meeting, between two or more communicating devices, or between a computer and user (see Login session). A session is set up or established at a certain point in time, and torn down at a later point in time. An established communication session may involve more than one message in each direction. A session is typically, but not always, stateful, meaning that at least one of the communicating parts needs to save information about the session history in order to be able to communicate, as opposed to stateless communication, where the communication consists of independent requests with responses.

An established session is the basic requirement to perform a connection-oriented communication. A session also is the basic step to transmit in connectionless communication modes. However any unidirectional transmission does not define a session.

Communication sessions may be implemented as part of protocols and services at the application layer, at the session layer or at the transport layer in the OSI model.

  • Application layer examples:
    • HTTP sessions, which allow associating information with individual visitors
    • A telnet remote login session
  • Session layer example:
    • A Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based Internet phone call
  • Transport layer example:
    • A TCP session, which is synonymous to a TCP virtual circuit, a TCP connection, or an established TCP socket.

In the case of transport protocols that do not implement a formal session layer (e.g., UDP) or where sessions at the session layer are generally very short-lived (e.g., HTTP), sessions are maintained by a higher level program using a method defined in the data being exchanged. For example, an HTTP exchange between a browser and a remote host may include an HTTP cookie which identifies state, such as a unique session ID, information about the user's preferences or authorization level.

HTTP/1.0 was thought to only allow a single request and response during one Web/HTTP Session. However a workaround was created by David Hostettler Wain in 1996 such that it was possible to use sessionsIDs to allow multiple phase Web Transaction Processing (TP) Systems (in ICL nomenclature), with the first implementation being called Deity. Protocol version HTTP/1.1 further improved by completing the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) making it easier to maintain the Web Session and supporting cookies and file uploads.

Most client-server sessions are maintained by the transport layer - a single connection for a single session. However each transaction phase of a Web/HTTP session creates a separate connection. Maintaining session continuity between phases required a sessionID. The sessionID is embedded within the or

links of dynamic web pages so that it is passed back to the CGI. CGI then uses the sessionID to ensure session continuity between transaction phases. One advantage of one connection-per-phase is that it works well over low bandwidth (modem) connections. Deity used a sessionID, screenID and actionID to simplify the design of multiple phase sessions.

Read more about Session (computer Science):  Software Implementation, Server Side Web Sessions, Client Side Web Sessions, HTTP Session Token, Session Management

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