On Wednesday 05 November 2003 12:17 pm, Chris Wagner wrote:

>>> (What's LDAP?)

> >It's a standard used for distributed directories.  Like Active Directory.

> What's a distributed directory? Is it similar to mapping network shares or
> something totally different?

Usually it's a central directory that lists necessary hierarchical information 
about a "network object".  This can be a server, a share, or most usually a 
user.  LDAP databases can be used for centralized authentication for logins 
and for access to various network resources; when used to access resources 
the information about those resources can be stored in the LDAP database too.  

LDAP stands forLightweight Directory Access protocol, so like SQL it's mostly 
a standard for the language used to query the database.

The database is very flexible - so flexible in fact that getting any two LDAP 
applications (typically a server and a client) to speak the same language is 
a significant dark art.  

These days we're seeing lots of attempts to use LDAP for centralized company 
address books, security and authentication, and the storage of preferences 
and settings for users who's identity is stored on an LDAP server.  The 
problem, again, is getting the applications and the servers to agree on what 
to call each element of information.  This agreement is called a "schema", 
and every application I've seen so far has it's very own exclusive 
definitions - usually a dozen or so different sets.