Sams Teach Yourself EJB in 21 Days

Directory Services

A directory service is a hierarchical database—a special type of database that stores objects for fast retrievals, and has infrequent insertions, deletions, and updates. The quick access of a directory service is achieved by different techniques of indexing, caching, and disk access. Most directory services include naming services as well. An example of a directory service is the yellow pages of your phone book. LDAP is the most popular directory protocol and is used as a standard network directory service. Active Directory is another directory service that is commonly used for Windows applications.

A directory service provides a way to manage the storage and distribution of shared information. Such information can range from ...