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This page on the Sitecore documentation site notes that "Shared session state is not supported on content management servers" but it does not mention why. Does anybody know why that is?

We have a test-setup with two servers where one server is a dedicated content delivery server and the other is a combined content delivery/content management server (a combined server was chosen to keep license costs down). We hope to find out if shared out-proc session will be working in this setup.

ebug
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As stated, CM servers do not support shared session states, i.e. they do not support StateServer or SQLServer. CM servers have to be configured InProc. One reason for this is controlling edits. If the content editor was being bounced between CM servers, some data may not be preserved correctly.

Since you are sharing servers for a CM and CD, you will not be able to use out of proc.

From a security standpoint, I do not recommend sharing your CD and CM server. Your CM server should not be available in a production environment. The cost of an additional CD license out weighs the cost of exposing the CM server.

Edit: Starting with Sitecore 6.5 U5, out of proc session state became experimental. Which means you can't get support for it.

I am adding the versions to the answer for CM support. NOTE: support is only experimental and I do not recommend using it on your Sitecore CM servers According to the Sitecore Knowledgebase https://kb.sitecore.net/articles/901069, the following support notes have been abstracted for CM servers:

  • Sitecore 6.5.0 Update-4 and earlier - only InProc
  • Sitecore 6.5.0 Update-5 (Service Pack-1) - "experimental support for using Sitecore Clients with SqlServer, StateServer, and other out-of-process session-state modes since CMS 6.5.0 Update-5. Core features such as content editing and publishing should work as expected, but we are aware of a number of issues that have not yet been addressed, so the feature can be used for evaluation of this functionality, but is not considered production-ready yet."
  • Sitecore 7.0 Update-3 - Further fixes
  • Sitecore 7.5 Initial Release - Serialization errors found ERROR Application error. Exception: System.Web.HttpException Message: Unable to serialize the session state. In 'StateServer' and 'SQLServer' mode, ASP.NET will serialize the session state objects, and as a result non-serializable objects or MarshalByRef objects are not permitted. The same restriction applies if similar serialization is done by the custom session state store in 'Custom' mode. Source: System.Web at System.Web.Util.AltSerialization.WriteValueToStream(Object value, BinaryWriter writer) at System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateItemCollection.WriteValueToStreamWithAssert(Object value, BinaryWriter writer) at System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateItemCollection.Serialize(BinaryWriter writer) ...
  • Sitecore 7.5 Update-1 - fixed serialization and and additional fixes
C Sigmon
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  • Do you know what will actually happen if I activate out-proc on the CM server? The CM server will not be available in production - this is only in our test-setup. – ebug Jan 16 '17 at 07:58
  • Please see my addition comments in the answer – C Sigmon Jan 16 '17 at 21:20