Choosing an Overall Directory Design and Deployment Approach

After you have identified your directory needs, choose an overall design and deployment approach that fits your way of doing things and your specific situation. Your choice will help you succeed with your service deployment ”and in the end, that's what matters the most.

Match the Prevailing Philosophy

It is important to choose an approach that fits your philosophy, as well as that of your team and your organization. Some people prefer to spend a lot of time in the design and piloting phases before moving a directory service into production. Others prefer to jump in with both feet and deploy a pilot service with the knowledge that iteration and redesign will take place in the future.

The organization or project for which you are deploying the directory service may also have expectations that are important to meet. For example, if most deployed computing services are 24x7 services that are heavily financed and staffed, it makes little sense to deploy a directory service that is not of similar quality.

Take Constraints into Account

Another factor in choosing an approach that works for you is to consider the constraints under which the deployment must operate . Earlier in this chapter we listed some of these deployment and environmental constraints. Resource constraints (time, money, and people) usually affect your approach the most because they tend to limit in a very real way what you can do and how fast you can do it. The authors know of several successful directory deployment projects that began as spare-time activities, but those projects did take longer to develop into high-quality production services than some other well- funded and well-staffed projects did.

Political constraints are also worth considering, especially if they imply a specific schedule or a specific way of doing things. For example, suppose that there is strong political opposition to or just strong skepticism about the directory project. If so, it may make sense to deliver a basic, useful service as soon as possible instead of taking time to design a be-all and end-all directory service.

Favor Simple over Complex

Another important point is that simple solutions generally work better than complex ones. Combined with a deep knowledge of the subject matter and an incremental approach to design, a "keep it simple" approach is probably your best bet. This book provides in-depth coverage of directory services, but we encourage you to adopt an incremental approach to design and deployment to go with good knowledge of all the issues.

In an incremental approach to design, you begin by choosing simple solutions that address your most important needs and then revisit design decisions later as necessary. In this way, you can feed real deployment experience gained during pilot or production phases of the directory service back into the design process. Finding and deploying a simple solution is not necessarily quicker than finding and deploying a complex one, but simple solutions do tend to be easier to debug, easier to understand, and more flexible.

Focus on the Most Important Needs

Finally, it is best to focus initially on the most important directory- related needs, perhaps the top five. If, instead, you try to meet all the needs you are aware of, you may end up not meeting any of them well. Using the process outlined in this chapter to locate and prioritize application and user needs should help you find the most important areas to focus your efforts. Having focus will also make it much easier to measure your progress, as discussed in the next section.