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Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
Here's
the easy definition of LDAP: LDAP is an open standards-based protocol for
accessing information in a directory. A
directory is a place where information is stored. The NT server directory has
information about your network account; the Siebel directory contains
information about your customers; and HR's directory has information about you.
The problem with these and all other directories is that they are typically
proprietary and require a special protocol or software running on your PC to
access them. This means you must support multiple clients on your PC to connect
to each different directory, and typically the separate directories are unable
to exchange information with each other. Now,
imagine you decided to change your name. Which database do you need to modify?
The answer is all of them, one at a time. But what if there was a communication
protocol that allowed you to exchange information between disparate directories?
Using the previous example you would only need to change your name once, and the
other directories could update themselves from a master directory. This is what
LDAP does. LDAP
was originally designed as a communication protocol between a client and a
directory but has expanded into a stand-alone directory service of its own. The
International Standards Organization (ISO) created a standards-based directory
structure called X.500, but this standard was so robust that clients
communicating with it required high performance workstations. The X.500 protocol
used was called Directory Access Protocol (DAP). LDAP is a
"lightweight" version of the DAP protocol that removed much of the
overhead associated with the protocol. This allowed any workstation to access
X.500 directories and was the original function that LDAP performed. Since then,
later versions of LDAP have replaced the need for a dedicated X.500 directory
altogether. Today, directory vendors such as Netscape, What
does this mean for networking? Network devices (switches) can increase their
intelligence by using an LDAP client to retrieve information from distributed
network information servers. Information can include IP address assignments,
security information for authentication / firewalls, configuration information,
QoS information, etc. Someday LDAP might allow switches to fully configure
themselves - all you'll have to do is plug them in.
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