Various embodiments of the present invention are direct to the utilization of Blob Handles (BHs) which are an internal representation of a large value. BHs are immutable and stateless references to a large data object. The structure of a BH contains enough information to return an ILockBytes interface in order to provide access to the corresponding large data block, and a BH can also return information regarding its own lifetime description. A BH can be completely described using (a) a pointer to the beginning of BH data and (b) the byte-length of the BH.