Virtual Identity Dialogue

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I just wanted to respond quickly to a post Marty made about my initial  use case.



The directories themselves DO NOT have to have the same schema. It's
very common case where OVD is used to provide a single point of contact
for both an AD and a Sun Directory server. This is a popular deployment
model where staff data is in the AD server and customer data is in the
Sun server.



And you can do all of this using a nice point and click interface.

In many organizations, identity data - whether it is staff identity,
customer identity, student identity or partner identity data is very
likely stored in a central relational database somewhere.



But if you want to leverage that identity data in your applications, LDAP is the protocol of choice.



Which in the past has normally meant copying that data into a central
LDAP server. This in turn can add headaches or delays into the process
of deploying new applications. It can also mean learning a whole new
skill set (LDAP server management, management of synchronization
processes) and potentially developing new capabilities (such as
synchronization development and management.



Not to mention building out additional high-availability capacity.



But there is another option and we already have a customers deployed who are doing something different.



That is instead of doing the copy and synch approach used by many for their enterprise directory solution.



They instead deploy a virtual directory which instead uses the data as
it exists in their existing relational databases and provides an LDAP
interface to it.



No additional synchroniztion headaches required.



Just grab the proper JDBC driver (no we're not restricted to just my
employer's database products :)) and in a handful of mouse-clicks, you
have an LDAP server leveraging your existing data.