LDAP Directory Technology Review

Literature available related to Directory Servers is relatively poor, with most publications providing a basic outline of the key concepts involved and a guide on how to start developing a directory enabled application, how to optimise the queries and the terminology used. The concepts behind Directories have fundamental differences, as opposed to the Relational Model, and some are very complicated to realise.

Directory technology was not introduced during the MSc Computing & Information Systems programme and one of the main reasons it was chosen for the proposed system was to prove that the techniques and technologies used throughout the programme can be used in order to extend knowledge in previously unknown fields of the Computing Science.

In addition, there is no standard practice or methodology used to develop such systems, although the methodologies utilised for developing RDBMS-based applications can be applied to the Directory enabled applications. The interoperability of heterogeneous systems and technologies is the key to the success of this project.

Printed literature on Directory Servers is fairly poor, with only a handful of books available which provide the guidelines for how to develop a directory, how to optimise the queries and the terminology used. A great deal of responsibility is left on the directory developers and on how their systems can cope within the specific boundaries of processing power and memory.

The main objective of this chapter is to provide a background and theoretical analysis of Directory technology and at the same time indicate the use of Directories in the Computing Industry and the main reasons behind the decision to use a Directory Server for the proposed system.