Chapter 2. Assessing Your Needs for Naming Service Transition and Consolidation

This chapter defines the problems businesses face, while making the case for transitioning from a legacy naming service to an LDAP-based directory service. Included are tips on how to identify issues that are commonly encountered in naming service transition and consolidation.

This chapter looks at how legacy naming services such as NIS and NIS+ are typically deployed in an enterprise today and why they were deployed the way they were.

Directory needs are as varied as the enterprises they serve. Because the transition to LDAP technology from legacy NIS/NIS+ naming services is not a one-to-one replacement, more than just naming service data needs to be addressed.

This chapter is organized into the following sections:

"What Consolidation Means" on page 14
"Understanding Legacy Naming Services" on page 20
"Business Case for Transitioning to LDAP" on page 15
"Migration Planning" on page 26