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Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services > 13. Piloting Your Directory Service

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Chapter 13. Piloting Your Directory Service

One of the most important milestones in your directory's early life cycle is achieved when you pilot the service. Until this point, your design has existed only in documents, on white boards , and in your head. During the pilot stage, you move from paper to programs, from design to deployment, and from theory to practice.

During your directory pilot, you get your first look at how well the design you've labored over works in something approaching a real environment. You begin to see how well the software you've selected performs , how smoothly the data maintenance procedures that you've designed work, and how receptive the users of your directory are to the service. You will then make modifications to your design based on feedback from the pilot. You should never consider deploying a service or making a major change to your service without testing and piloting it first.

Piloting is important for the following reasons:

  • No matter how complete a design you believe you have produced, there will always be things you did not think of that show up only when the service is actually running ”and piloting can help find these design flaws.

  • Piloting is the best way to provide users of your service ”end users, administrators, and other people involved in all aspects of the eventual system ”an early look at what you are planning. Getting their feedback early and responding to it is key to producing a successful directory deployment.

  • Management often likes to see something tangible before committing additional resources to it. Piloting can provide an important political tool for you to gain continued funding, extra resources, or other benefits for your project.

  • Piloting is the best way to determine how well your directory serves the needs of your directory-enabled applications.

There may be other benefits to piloting as well, depending on your situation.

In this chapter, we present a road map to guide you through the process of piloting your directory service. We start with pre-pilot testing, in which you ensure that the directory software you have chosen will perform well in your environment. We then focus on determining the scope and goals of your pilot, and we continue with a discussion of the piloting environment you need. Next we talk about how to collect feedback on your pilot and how to scale up your pilot to simulate the load the service will experience in production. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of how to analyze the feedback generated from your pilot experience, the implications the feedback has on your design, and how to make changes to the design.



Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services,  2002 New Riders Publishing
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Index terms contained in this section

directories
          piloting service 2nd 3rd 4th
piloting
          directory services 2nd 3rd 4th
services
          piloting 2nd 3rd 4th

2002, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.



Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services
Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0672323168
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 1997
Pages: 245

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