* The phrase "LDAP Directory" is still bandied about leading many people to believe that, somehow, LDAP defines the directory structure
It’s that time of the month when we pause and reflect on what we were talking about in this newsletter (and in the IdM community in general) 10 years ago — in this case, August 2000.
As we keep noticing, many of the problems we have today aren’t new, they just carry different buzzword labels. On August 21, 2000, under the headline “Another misunderstanding,” I wrote: “Directory services aren’t rocket science, but why are the basic concepts so hard for most people to grasp?”
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What got me started was a press release I had received that week for a new product which said, in part: “In addition, the directory services accommodate extremely extensible information that can be maintained in LDAP (mail, personnel information, etc.).”
Maintained in LDAP. That’s what it said!
Of course, we all know that Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is a protocol, not a data repository. So that sentence left me with the impression that the data being maintained simply keeps circling the network, on the wire. Thousands — no, millions — of LDAP packets running back and forth, ready to deliver information where and when it is needed, and as a by-product, completely clogging the wire, so no data can get through.
Yet, to this day, the phrase “LDAP Directory” is still bandied about leading many people to believe that, somehow, LDAP defines the directory structure. It doesn’t. If anything, x.500 can be considered the directory definition. Part of that definition is the Directory Access Protocol (DAP). Because DAP specified a full implementation of the OSI stack (something very few organizations have ever done) some folks created a simpler, lightweight protocol, or LDAP. We just need to remember, as I ended another newsletter that year:
“So, repeat after me:”
* LDAP is a protocol, not a directory specification.
* There’s no such thing as an ‘LDAP directory.’
* Directories that support the LDAP protocol are correctly termed ‘LDAP-enabled.’
I feel much better now, and I hope you do too.”
