1. A computer implemented method for managing a request for processing in a partitioned application server environment, the partitioned application server environment including a plurality of application partitions, each application partition designated to handle a subset of application requests from clients for the application by application rules, the computer implemented method comprising: receiving a request from a client at the partitioned application server environment to form a received request; identifying an application partition of the plurality of application partitions in the partitioned application server environment based on the received request to handle the request based on content of the request in view of the application rules; sending the received request to the identified application partition; migrating stateful data for use by application partitions in the plurality of application partitions to service the request; recording an affinity between the client and the first identified application partition; receiving a second received request from the client in the first identified application partition; identifying in the first identified application partition that a second application partition in the plurality of application partitions is to process the second received request based on the content of the second received request, wherein the second application partition is designated in the application rules to handle the content of the second received request; forwarding the second received request to the second identified application partition; forwarding the stateful data from the first request to the second identified application partition; deleting the stateful data from the first request from the stateful data repository in the first identified application partition; communicating a command to delete the copy of the replicated stateful data in each of the plurality of application partitions in a replication group to which the plurality of application partitions belong; and updating the affinity to reflect an affinity between the client and the second identified application partition.