I'm about to create a portal. I would like to know are there any possible ways of including a sidebar in my page?

The sidebar will have to run functions and retrieve data from database, i've used "include virtual" to include another form as a sidebar, but it can't support multiple forms in one page.

Is using a customised user control an easier way? I'll have to create a sidebar and include it as an user control in everypage, will it be possible to pass session around if i click a link from the side bar?

Thanks!