ASP.NET ApplicationId

Question

I read somewhere that ApplicationID is a unique identifier for a website (path to IIS site). But I'm still confused.

• When and why do I need it?
• I am trying to implement asp.net membership for a website and I will create additional SQL tables (e.g. companies, services, etc.) that are different from asp.net membership tables. So; Do I need to include the ApplicationID column in these user tables? Why?

Answer 1

The application ID is stored in the aspnet_Applications table in your membership database. When you first turn on the ASP Memebership provider, the name of the application that you installed in your web.config is entered into this table. From now on, the membership provider uses your application name to determine which users can log in to authenticate the user in your application.

To answer the second question, no, unless you have unique needs / requirements for this. Reason: asp.net membership is configured so that you can host multiple, possibly different, applications using the same membership database. This is nice because you do not need to create a different database for each of your sites for authentication. If you do not have several or different applications that fall into these other tables that you mentioned, you do not need to worry about assigning them the application, since your users are already logged in.