Directory services still evolving

The foundation for security and enterprise management

Looking back ten years, as we do once each month, I find it hard to disagree with anything I said in that last newsletter of December, 2000. All of the holidays mentioned aren’t upcoming in the year 2010, of course, since some are based on lunar cycles that make them movable feasts. Still, I may have been a little Pollyannaish in my outlook for the future of directory-based (now identity-based) computing.

What do NASA changes and IT security issues have in common?

So it does warrant repeating: “Happy holidays! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Eid, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, or some other holiday the next two weeks should provide at least one opportunity for you to pause, reflect - and possibly eat a lot.

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Looking back ten years, as we do once each month, I find it hard to disagree with anything I said in that last newsletter of December, 2000. All of the holidays mentioned aren’t upcoming in the year 2010, of course, since some are based on lunar cycles that make them movable feasts. Still, I may have been a little Pollyannaish in my outlook for the future of directory-based (now identity-based) computing.

What do NASA changes and IT security issues have in common?

So it does warrant repeating: “Happy holidays! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Eid, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, or some other holiday the next two weeks should provide at least one opportunity for you to pause, reflect - and possibly eat a lot.

It’s the season of gift giving, the time for new resolutions and - as the year, the decade and the millennium close - a time to reflect on the past and ponder the future.

Thirty-five years ago, when I broke into the computer field, a directory was a plaque posted next to the elevator in an office building listing the location of the tenants. Twenty years ago, when the PC revolution was beginning, a directory was a book (published usually by your local branch of the telephone company) listing all the phone numbers in your town. 

Ten years ago, there were a few people in Europe - and a much smaller number in the US - who understood that a directory, as embodied in the x.500 specification - had the potential to affect in a major way the networking which was beginning to take place in the business world.

Today, while I'd like to say that everyone understands the importance of directory services to modern electronic commerce, security, cooperative computing and general networking, I can't. We're not quite there yet, and we may never be there.

Just as few people understand the telephone network but billions of people use it to further their business so it might be with the directory. As long as those in a position to structure the network and design its applications know the directory's benefits, that may be enough.

Happy holidays to you all! We’ll see you again after the new year breaks.

The next few years should tell the tale.

Read more about security in Network World's Security section.

Dave Kearns is a consultant and editor of IdM, the Journal of Identity Management.