1. A method comprising: receiving a deployment descriptor that corresponds to an application and specifies whether a persistence scope of the application is instance-wide or cluster-wide; if the deployment descriptor specifies that the persistence scope of the application is instance-wide, creating an instance-wide session domain that corresponds to the application based on the deployment descriptor specifying that the persistence scope is limited to one target computer, the instance-wide session domain being created on a target computer and configured to store session objects that represent sessions of the application, the instance-wide session domain corresponding to session criteria that include the persistence scope of the application; otherwise, if the deployment descriptor specifies that the persistence scope of the application is cluster-wide, creating a cluster-wide session domain that corresponds to the application based on the deployment descriptor specifying that the persistence scope is for multiple target computers, the cluster-wide session domain being created on a target computer among a plurality of target computers accessible by the plurality of target computers to store session objects that represent sessions of the application, the cluster-wide session domain corresponding to session criteria that include the persistence scope of the application; managing a session represented by a session object within the created session domain consistent with the session criteria that include the persistence scope of the application, the session interacting with the application; and persisting state information of the session that interacts with the application based on he session criteria that include the persistence scope of the application, the persisting of the state information being performed by a processor of the target computer.