News
Microsoft Specification to Synchronize Directory Services
- By Scott Bekker
- March 16, 1999
Amid the brewing directory services war between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc., Team Redmond submitted a specification that ties directory services together more closely to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF,
www.ietf.org). Microsoft is also making the specification freely available, without license, for use by anyone.
The specification is for a flexible LDAP-based control called DirSync that enables synchronization of information between heterogeneous directories.
The DirSync control makes it easier for developers to build synchronization products that lower the cost and complexity of multi-directory administration by capturing changes occurring within one directory service and propagating them to other directories automatically. For example, the synchronization services between Active Directory and Novell’s NDS are based on the Active Directory implementation of the DirSync control.
"Directory integration, meta-directory style, is still difficult because directory products store and protect data in different ways and often do not have a mechanism for change notification," said Bruce Robertson, vice president, adaptive infrastructure strategies, Meta Group (www.meta.com). "Microsoft's LDAP-based interoperability approach should simplify the otherwise laborious task of chasing what has changed, making synchronization more efficient." – Thomas Sullivan, Senior Reporter, Northwest Correspondent.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.