Serialized JavaBeans can be saved on a session backup server. If the Oracle ATG Web Commerce server originally handling a session becomes unavailable, important elements of a user’s session can be recreated from these serialized beans. A property’s serialize attribute tag lets you customize how to handle that property when a repository item is serialized.

If you serialize a transient item, its properties are serialized along with it. You can exclude individual properties from serialization as follows:

<property ...>
   <attribute name="serialize" value="false"/>
</property>

If you serialize a persistent item, only transient properties (those not in a table tag) are serialized unless their serialize attribute is set as follows:

<property ...>
   <attribute name="serialize" value="true"/>
</property>

If the item is persistent, its persistent properties are written to the database and can be retrieved if the session needs to be restored.