Network Infrastructure Engineering
A Directory Service is a database optimised more for reading than it is for writing. The Phonebook is released every other year and a network user database is only updated when user information changes - but both these sources of information are read frequently. Almost anyone involved in the development or maintenance of networked applications or services is already working with at least one directory: a system of maintaining user information.
Why do I need to manage my own directory service?
A well designed and implemented Directory service holds all the data about your companies Infrastructure, it provides a single point of change for information about your business.
We have already seen that almost any network uses a variety of directories, often for specific services. In database-speak, that means the directory data is not normalized, which means many pieces of data are stored in more than one place, and thus must be changed in more than one place when changes are necessary.
This is a problem for many reasons. The most obvious is that every time any information in any of these directories gets changed, all of the other directories must be hunted through to make that same change. This is not only difficult, it is often completely unmanageable -- witness the ease with which passwords for the same user in different services go out of sync
What you really want in a network is unification of directories, and this is exactly what directory services are designed for. With this unification, you get data normalization, central management, consistent user experience, consistent management and security policies, fewer security holes, and less wasted development time.
How can Opus-Novum help me?
We have been working with Directory Services, for a long time. We understand the issues better than most, and are able to design directory architectures to meet your requirements. We have extensive knowledge and expertise in migrating data from proprietary systems to your directory. We can also provide scripts to synchronise your directory with applications which are not yet compatible.
Which directory service should I use ?
Active Directory? NDS? Hesoid/Kerberos? OpenLDAP? RADIUS? SunOne Directory Server? IBM SecureWay Directory Server? NIS(YP)? DNS?
Most of operating system vendors now provide a directory service, and a few more besides, but at the end of the day we don't care which one you use. We've used them all, and so can you; through the magic of LDAPTM . we can synchronise and exchange data between all of them.