Digital Identity

Directories

Information system directories are everywhere. Most systems have multiple directories for address books, password files, lists of authorized users for particular applications, and so on. Even the much-maligned Windows registry is a directory. IT departments maintain large, enterprise-wide directories. In fact, the average IT organization maintains dozens of different directories of all types.

A directory service is a network-aware directory that allows a directory to be centrally managed and, at the same time, supply directory information to distributed applications. While we typically think of directories associating information with people, directories are useful for a wide range of IT and business needs. As such, directories are a critical part of the identity management infrastructure in most organizations.

A directory service contains a structured repository of information, often with complex interrelationships. The structure is defined in a schema : the metadata that defines the overall relationship of each piece of data stored in each entry in the directory to the others. The schema defines a structure within which the data is stored.

The schema specifies what properties can be associated with an entry, the allowed format or type of the property, and whether it is optional or mandatory. Each entry is defined as an object in the directory, and a given object contains the properties associated with that entry. Attributes can be thought of as name-value pairs, because ...