In this research, the authors design and implement a new mechanism to store shared data
(context data) across several sessions in a World Wide Web (hereafter Web) system. The Web
is being used more and more in client-server system architecture, and this trend is continuing.
However, in a client-server system that uses a Web system, problems that did not occur on
conventional client-server systems (those that do not use the Web) occur. One of these is
storing context data. The HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) protocol used in a Web system
is a session, and as a result context data cannot be preserved. Although several mechanisms
to store the context data have been proposed, each has problems with security and reliability.
The authors have decided to use the so-called document view architecture in order to design
a new context data storage mechanism to resolve these problems. This architecture provides
the primary functions needed to store context data. The special characteristic of this new
mechanism is found in storing context data in main memory on the client computer. In
addition, the authors decided to introduce component-object technology to improve efficiency.
This allows for a significant increase in security and reliability. Finally, the authors demonstrate
the validity of their new context data storage mechanism using common applications.