The Open Group DCE Program Group “Directory Services?” January 29th 1998 Amsterdam

The Open Group Structure –What information should a name reveal? For example, X.500 conventions often reflect organisational structure but is that information you want to make public? –Multiple ‘views’ of the same data? Organisational - Reflects enterprise structure Functional - Based on application usage Administrative - Related data in conveniently administered. External - Restricted information based on privilege. –A lot comes down to how you use the directory JP Morgan “DCE Project Namespaces” work because of the nature of the application development and usage. –Must be able to cope with change If you model an organisation, can the directory keep up with reality?

The Open Group Usage Different people have different expectations –Administration staff (on the whole) realise and expect that the directory is mostly “read” and “writes” have delay. –End-users expect optimisation for read-write operations, any of these to be instantaneous... oh, and it has to be continuously available. Thank you! –How do we ensure efficiency as directory scales and distributes to satisfy all ‘customers’ ?

The Open Group Federation Highly unlikely any major corporation will utter “We want a single directory for everything” (and live to see it...) –Legacy of existing technologies and vested interests. –Management is the killer (of the directory and organisation). Recognise the need for a level of “peaceful co- existence”. Boundary issues become very important. –Recognise and traverse junctions with other directories. –Preserve security, manageability etc. across boundaries.

The Open Group Access LDAP is a Good Thing but there are other issues. –The management of a directory is more complex than its use. –LDAP may provide a unified view but someone has to manage the diversity behind the scenes. Optimised “point solutions” will continue. –DNS, network file systems, etc. work well and are familiar. –Inconsistent access mechanisms are only a problem if a user sees them as arbitrarily inconsistent.

The Open Group Content What ‘should’ we be storing in a directory? –Support for truly dynamic information such as process-ids? Nice in theory but... –Definite requirement to handle ‘moving’ references; something like the way changing URLs have been approached? –Side Question: Whatever happened to URNs ??? –How do you keep multiple directories ‘consistent’?

The Open Group Consistency How do we keep directories consistent? –A contractor’s HR system feeds a client’s HR directory... –The HR directory inputs to the Phone directory... –The Phone directory is cross-checked with the directory... –Local administrative practice drives user account directories but must be traceable to HR systems... Propagation delays can be huge. Should data be tagged with a “use by” date? This leads on to...

The Open Group Who owns the information? Human Resources - Employee IDs? System admin - Login characteristics? Applications - Service information? End Users - Personal information? Directory admin - It’s all theirs anyway? –Each organisation may answer differently. –A single owner is the “easy” answer. –Multiple partial owners is the “hard” (and true) one.

The Open Group Can of Worms ! On-line, Offline operations Cache –What ? –When ? –Lifetime ? All those things we have yet to think about…...