A system and method are provided for maintaining states for user sessions with a web system. Maintaining state includes receiving a request from a user that initiates a user session with the web system and processing the request to provide a web page to the user. Session data (220) representing a state of the user session is stored in memory in a global session server (212). Then, for each subsequent request associated with the user session, the subsequent request is received, and the session data (220) is retrieved from the global session server (212). The subsequent request is then processed using the session data (220) to provide a web page to the user, and the session data (220) is changed to reflect the processing. The session data (220) is then updated in the global session server (212). The global session server (212) thereby stores session data (220) unique to each user session accumulated over multiple web transactions. In one implementation, the session data (220) includes name/value pairs where the values can be self describing objects such as text, numbers, arrays, and interfaces to other objects.