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Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services > 5. Defining Your Directory Needs > Determining and Prioritizing Deployment Constraints

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Determining and Prioritizing Deployment Constraints

Both the organizational situation and the characteristics of the system designers and administrators involved in the directory design and deployment impose some constraints that affect the deployment strategy and possibly the design of the directory service itself. If you are one of the system designers or administrators, some of these constraints arise from your personal views. There is often little you can do to alter the organizational situation or people's personal characteristics, but by understanding the constraints imposed by them you can choose the directory design and deployment approach that is most likely to succeed. This section discusses some of the areas to consider when determining and prioritizing deployment constraints.

Resources

One important set of constraints involves the quantity of resources ”money, time, and people ”available for the directory deployment effort. When creating any new service, it is important to know how much money is available to spend , how much time you have for planning and deployment, and how much effort can be applied to the project. In turn , the leader of the directory deployment effort should provide detailed information to the project sponsors about what resources will be needed.

Be sure to set realistic goals. For example, it may be okay to spend three months planning before beginning a directory service pilot, but not if a workflow application the directory must serve is expected to be fully deployed within that same time period.

Openness of the Process

Another set of deployment constraints relates to the openness of the directory design and deployment process. If the directory project is officially blessed and well funded by a centralized information services organization, it probably makes sense to have a fairly open process in which you publish and solicit comments on your preliminary directory design.

It is especially helpful to get feedback from administrators of applications, people who manage other databases within your organization, and end users themselves . However, if the directory project is being conducted in secret on time borrowed from other projects, the design process should be closed. Although in some organizations a secret "skunk works" project of this sort may not be tolerated, in others it is an acceptable approach that can be used to make progress in the face of organizational opposition or indifference.

Skills of the Directory Project Team

Also consider the skills of the people working on the directory design and deployment. Information systems professionals with many years of experience assigned full-time to a directory project are more likely to succeed with a "from scratch" approach than people who are asked to work on a directory project in their spare time. Also, some organizations and individuals have a tendency to look for turnkey solutions that require less design and experimentation. Alternately, some people are inclined to learn everything there is to know about the problem and design a solution from start to finish. Understanding the skills and experience of your team will help you set realistic goals.

The Skills and Needs of System Administrators

Consider the skills and needs of the people who will maintain your directory service and associated applications after they are deployed. Most system administrators prefer to eliminate or at least automate boring, repetitive tasks . In large organizations, system administrators typically spend a lot of their time and effort managing organizational data ”an area in which your directory service might be able to help make their job easier. By talking to a group of system administrators, you can generate a lot of good ideas for directory management tools, application management aids, and process improvements.

The Political Climate

Finally, consider the political climate within your organization. If you have been asked to succeed in designing and deploying a fully functional directory service, even though several other groups have failed in the past, a short time to market may be an important requirement. Showing some early, useful results will help gain support for continuing work on the directory service. You may also find that you need to spend considerable time and resources to defuse political conflicts with other parts of your organization. As a directo ry expert, part of your job is to sell everyone on the benefits of a general-purpose, standards-based directory service. Remember that good communication is the best weapon you have to help reduce the impact of political conflicts.

For example, if you find at some point during your directory design and deployment effort that you are blocked due to a lack of cooperation from another group, you may be able to defuse the situation by gaining the support of the other group's management. An effective method for achieving this is to prepare a presentation on the benefits the directory deployment will bring, and then sell management on the idea. It is important not to let your project lose too much momentum or collapse due to political conflicts.

Prioritizing Your Deployment Constraints

As with the application and user needs discussed earlier, list all the deployment constraints you can think of and then try to assign priorities to each one. Because many of the deployment constraints come out of organizational or personal characteristics, it is important to be as objective as possible and make sure the most important constraints overall are near the top of your list. Keep in mind that no matter what you do, you probably will not satisfy everyone, and that it may be more important, for example, to make the director of the personnel department happy than to make yourself happy.



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

administrators
         system
                    deployment constraints
constraints
          deployment
                    openness of processes
                    political climates 2nd
                    prioritizing
                    project team skills
                    resources
                    system administrator skills
defining
         directory needs
                    deployment constraints 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
deployment
          constraints
                    openness of processes
                    political climates 2nd
                    prioritizing
                    project team skills
                    resources
                    system administrator skills
needs
         directories
                    deployment constraints 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
political climates
          deployment constraints 2nd
prioritizing
          deployment constraints
project team skills
          deployment constraints
resources
          deployment constraints
systems
         administrators
                    deployment constraints

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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