Directory Services: Design, Implementation, and Management
A guide to understanding and implementing a variety of directory services.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Directory Services: Design, Implementation, and Management
Chapter 5: Trends and Emerging Directory Technologies
by Alexis Bor
5.1 Introduction: how did we get here?
This chapter puts directory technology into a context that lets the reader appreciate the difficult path that had to be taken to get to where we are today. We will explore the current developments, many of which continue to change at a very rapid pace, and try to put them into perspective. Based on these observations, we will then make some educated predictions as to where the technology will lead us over the next decade.
5.1.1 Recent past as predictor of near future
It is important to understand the origins of directory. Early attempts focused on two primary areas: e-mail and network operating system-related information. In the early days of networking, tables were maintained manually to keep track of nodes on the network. Typically, these were in the format of a flat file and system operators were responsible for periodically picking up these files and installing them on their local systems. This was true with many different networks, including IBM's System Network Architecture (SNA), Digital Equipment's DECnet, and what has come to be known today as the internet.
For example, in DEC net Phase II in the middle of the 1970s, you were limited to 32 nodes on your network. At the time, it was difficult to fathom a network expanding to that size. The cost of circuits was high, network interfaces were also expensive, and there were very few network-enabled applications. Managing network configurations by hand was still possible.
Copyright Butterworth-Heinemann 2002 under license agreement with Books24x7
