The number of corporate directories continues to expand. The need within companies to connect multiple directories, and to share data between them, is also growing. A classic example is that when someone leaves a company, thus triggering a change in the HR database, that information is shared with the network administrator. Two primary approaches to sharing directory data are now in use. One is a virtual directory that pulls live data on demand from multiple sources using LDAP. The other is to use a metadirectory, which gathers data from multiple sources, but which copies over data periodically using synchronization tools.
Virtual directories have traditionally been criticized for having slower response times, but vendors of these products, such as OctetString, contend freshness of content is more important than speed, and argue the performance they are able to offer is comparable to metadirectories anyway.
Back in June, Cameron Sturdevant of eweek, wrote an excellent piece on why virtual directories are the next big thing. More recently, the discussion recently came to a head with a posting by Mark Wilcox called "Caching Is Evil," which was picked up by Messaging News and other sites.
Of course, it actually depends on context. Both approaches are valid. Virtual directories and metadirectories will coexist.
... David Ferris
One Comment
We have a domino directory management product, and are very very interested in hooking it to other directory management products, using glue such as web services..
Our desire is to participate in a federated directory infrastructure as both a creator and consumer of directory requests (“one of my users has changed her name – here’s the details” as well as “your user has changed *his* name”, etc)
Is there some form of standards-based interoperability subsystem for this ? bear in mind that meta-directory-change (meta-meta directory?) information needs more than LDAP style definitions can allow.. (for instance, the Domino directory focuses on the Public/Private key “notes” id, and so forth…)
Do you have any opinions on this ?
—* Bill
(Readers will note that today I’m using my “work” contact details, as opposed to my personal blog on https://www.billbuchan.com)