RFC 1564 (rfc1564) - Page 2 of 21
DSA Metrics (OSI-DS 34 (v3))
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1564 DSA Metrics January 1994
7. Management tools 11
7.1 Dynamic system management ..................... 11
7.2 Static system management ...................... 12
7.3 Data management................................. 12
8. Operational Use 12
9. Interoperability 12
10. Performance 13
10.1 Speed for various operations .................. 14
10.1.1 Bind ..................................... 14
10.1.2 List ..................................... 15
10.1.3 Search .................................. 15
10.1.4 Read ..................................... 16
10.1.5 Add entry................................. 16
10.1.6 Modify entry ............................. 16
10.1.7 Modify RDN .............................. 16
10.1.8 Query rate .............................. 17
10.2 The results..................................... 17
10.3 Environment used for benchmarking ............. 17
11. Security Considerations 21
12. Authors' Addresses 21
1. Overview
The purpose of this document is to define some metrics by which DSA
products can be measured. Such metrics are valuable as whilst an
X.500 DSA must conform to the specification in the standard - this is
a sine qua non - protocol conformance is not in itself the hallmark
of a usable implementation. A DSA must perform operations within a
reasonable time; a DSA must offer good throughput of queries; a DSA
must be able to handle a reasonable volume of data; if modification
operations are provided, some sort of access control must be
provided; a DSA and its data must be manageable.
In many respects, it is almost impossible to say that one DSA is
better than other from looking at the responses to questions in this
document. For some, the cost or level of support will be the key
criterion. For another user, the flexibility of the schema
management facilities, or the feasibility of running the DSA over an
existing relational database, will be of prime importance. In many
respects DSAs will just be different, rather than better or worse.
However, all other things being equal, the look-up speed of a DSA is
very obviously measurable, and there is a substantial number of
questions on the speed of the various X.500 operations, and in
particular on the look-up operations.
Throughout this document, some of the questions posed are annotated
with a square-bracketed points score and an explanation as to how the
points should be allocated. For example, a question might be
Barker & Hedberg