Managing web tier session state objects in a content delivery network (CDN)

A method of managing user session state during execution of platform-independent code in a content delivery network (CDN) deployed and operated by a content delivery network service provider (CDNSP), the content delivery network comprising a set of edge servers organized into distinct and separate regions and a DNS-based request handling mechanism for mapping client DNS queries to the edge servers, at least some of the edge servers provisioned with a runtime container and application server code for executing the platform-independent code, comprising:

• at a first edge server provisioned with the runtime container and application server code and located in a first CDN region and in response to a request from a given client, establishing and maintaining a user session state in association with the execution of the platform-independent code at the first edge server;
• if the given client is mapped by the CDN DNS-based request handling mechanism to a second edge server provisioned with the runtime container and application server code, the second edge server being located in a second CDN region geographically distinct from the first CDN region, determining if the user session state is available at the second edge server;
• if the user session state is not available at the second edge server, migrating the user session state from the first edge server to the second edge server, wherein, as a result of the migrating step, the user session state is available to the platform-independent code on the second edge server;
• and
• executing the platform-independent code on the second edge server in association with the user session state to generate a result.

A method of managing user session state during execution of platform-independent code in a content delivery network (CDN) deployed and operated by a content delivery network service provider (CDNSP), the content delivery network comprising a set of edge server regions organized into distinct and separate regions and a DNS-based request handling mechanism for mapping DNS queries to the edge servers, each edge server region comprising a set of edge servers, and at least some of the edge servers in the CDN provisioned with a runtime container and application server code for executing the platform-independent code, comprising:

• for a given CDN region, associating a set of one or more replica regions;
• at a first edge server provisioned with the runtime container and application server code and located in the given CDN region, establishing and maintaining a user session state object in association with the execution of the platform-independent code at the first edge server;
• and
• replicating the user session state object to a given replica region in the set of replica regions associated with the given CDN region;
• wherein, as a result of the replicating step, the user session state object is available to the platform-independent code on a second edge server in the given replica region if the CDN DNS-based request handling mechanism maps a given DNS query associate with the execution of the platform-independent code to the second edge server.