Classnotes | LDAP01 | RecentChanges | Preferences One of the major selling points of LDAP as we have seen in this class is its potential for consolidation between vendor specific or application specific directories. We've seen this when we integrated it with mail servers, SAMBA servers, and the book points out many more such as NIS, DNS, SSH authentication, and Apache.
Still, while LDAP minimizes interoperability problems, "minimize" is the key word. The core features of LDAP are standardized, but things such as schemas are not. Thare are many common object classes and attributes that can be extended by a vendor. Not only can schames be extended, the protocal can be extended as well by creating additional operations using extensions and controls.
For each service that can be consolidated into an LDAP directory, there must be a corresponding client-side application that can access the old information in the new directory. That's not always an easy order to fill. Sooner or later, you're bound to encounter an LDAP-enabled program that requires the directory to impliment a specific schema or extended operation.
The goal of this final section is to discuss several technologues that you can use to solve problems of this sort. Every directory integration project is unique. Think of this generic tools as a starting point for finding a solution, but not as the solution itself.
