Metadirectories
The term metadirectory describes just about any solution that joins distinct, isolated data sources into a single logical volume. There are several popular metadirectory products on the market:
MaXware MetaCenter (http://www.maxware.com/)
Siemens DirXmetahub (http://www.siemens.ie/fixedoperators/CarrierNetworks/Meta/dirxmetahub.htm)
Sun Microsystems SunOne MetaDirectory (http://wwws.sun.com/software/products/meta_directory/home_meta_dir.html)
Novell’s eDirectory and DirXML combination (http://www.novell.com/products/edirectory/)
Microsoft Metadirectory Services (http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/technologies/directory/MMS)
For the sake of this section, we’ll assume that a metadirectory is any directory service that presents an alternate view of a data source. OpenLDAP’s proxy backend provides a simple means of translating one directory server’s schema into a different view, suitable for particular client applications. There is no replication or synchronization of data because the proxy provides only an alternate view of the target directory; the OpenLDAP server providing the proxy doesn’t actually store the data.
Imagine an email client that expects a directory service to provide
an email address using the mail attribute type.
Now consider that every user in an Active Directory domain is
automatically assigned a Kerberos principal name of the form
username@domain. If the email domain is
configured so that each user’s email address and
Kerberos principal name (
Get LDAP System Administration now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
