Troubleshooting and managing eDirectory can be difficult if you do not have a good grasp on how eDirectory works. In preparation for the advanced information presented in this book, you need to have a baseline understanding of certain terms and concepts. This chapter provides that baseline, including information on the following:
A brief history of NDS/eDirectory and its versioning
The eDirectory database structure
Partition and replica types
Bindery services
Time synchronization
DHost
Service Advertising Protocol (SAP) and Service Location Protocol (SLP)
Object attribute names versus schema attribute names
As more and more applications are starting to include Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) as an option to access directory services (DS), it is essential to also include LDAP terminology in your knowledge repertoire . Also discussed in this chapter is the integration of NDS and LDAP, and some of the new LDAP server features introduced for eDirectory versions 8.5 and higher.
NOTE
Much of the information presented in this chapter is also applicable to versions of NDS prior to eDirectory 8.5. Version-specific features are noted where applicable.