LDAP Directory Technology Review

The main purpose of this project is to analyse and design a prototype of a management application which can provide solutions for the day-to-day operations of a “Web Presence” provider, offering competitive features and form the basis for a “Data Centre” solution in which entire Server Farms can be administered from a centralised management console.

The proposed system must be an easily extendable solution, so that future sub-systems can be integrated easily. The company is also providing customised solutions tailored to specific business constraints and as such the proposed system needs to be able to manage multiple hardware architectures, as some websites need more than one server, so that the server load is balanced and performance is not compromised.

While the entire system is not possible to be delivered within the specific deadlines, this project focuses on the following objectives:

• Evaluation of the suitability of Directory Servers for this particular project
• Evaluation of the effectiveness of the Waterfall Method of Software Engineering in the context of the proposed system
• Development of the ordering and new customer registration system
• Development of a basic server management application for administrators
• Implementation of an OpenLDAP authentication system
• Identification of key concepts which can improve competitiveness
• Investigation on whether the concept behind the proposed system can be implemented (proof of concept)