- [[HTTP]] requests from users can be sent to any web servers, each server can fetch from the same shared storage of user state data - the user session is not kept in each server individually, instead that data is taken out ![[Pasted image 20250126154620.png|300]] - in stateful server architecture: - one user's session data and profile image will be trapped in a specific server - authentication of this user would fail on another server despite being the same service ![[Pasted image 20250126154608.png|300]] - this also allows for easy [[Horizontal Scaling]], as the universal data store for state data can be used by any number of servers - no trapped sessions