I'm fairly new to both JSF and ASP.NET, and as far as I can understand (correct me if I'm wrong), while using session scoped beans in JSF, data is stored on the server side temporarily, for the components. But in ASP.NET it seems that such temporary data is stored in a hidden field in the page itself, called Viewstate.
Am I right in assuming this? Is there anything in ASP.NET that'll automatically manage the data and store it server side in objects (like JSF does) ?
ASP.NET has support for both a Viewstate and a Session state. Here is a link to some info regarding session state.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178581.aspx
I'd recommend that you try to avoid using the viewstate at all, and use the session state sparingly. You should strive to keep your ASP.NET applications as "stateless" as possible. Do not over-use the session state or you could experience scalability issues down the road. Consider the following alternatives.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211020145945/https://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/041600-2.shtml