Data Distribution between LDAP and Non-LDAP Systems

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In the last section of this chapter, you will see that there are a number of possibilities to integrate different data sources. The most flexible of these possibilities is a broker between the different data sources and the LDAP server. This broker, however, has to be written and maintained.

The most frequent repositories you will find in an enterprise are databases of users and groups defined to access system resources. The same users, however, are defined only in the enterprise directory. We will see briefly a couple of examples of how these user databases can be integrated into the directory.

The last method to integrate different repositories into the company directory is to use the metadirectory technology. A metadirectory can integrate different information sources produced by different applications to provide one consistent view of all the available data. Nearly all suppliers of directory servers offer metadirectory solutions.

All of these issues are works in progress, because nearly all suppliers continue to provide diverse solutions to meet the requirements of the market. Because work on LDAP is far from being completed, the work on integrating directories with other important repositories required in every enterprise also has to continue.

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