RFC 2969 (rfc2969) - Page 2 of 19

Wide Area Directory Deployment - Experiences from TISDAG

RFC 2969             Wide Area Directory Deployment         October 2000


Table of Contents

   1.0 Introduction ................................................  2
   1.1 Overview of the TISDAG project ..............................  2
   1.2 Organization of this document ...............................  3
   2.0 The TISDAG project itself ...................................  3
   2.1  TISDAG overview ............................................  3
   2.2 Some successes ..............................................  4
   2.3 Some surprises ..............................................  5
   2.3.1 LDAP objectclasses and the "o" attribute ..................  6
   2.3.1 The Tagged Index Object ...................................  6
   2.3.3  Handling Status Messages .................................  7
   2.3.4  Deployment with Commercial Software ......................  7
   2.4 Some observations ...........................................  7
   2.4.1 Participation of the WDSPs ................................  7
   2.4.2 Index Objects and Referral Index size .....................  8
   2.4.3 Index Object and Query Performance ........................  8
   2.5 Some evolutions .............................................  9
   3.0 Related Projects ............................................ 11
   3.1 The Norwegian Directory of Directories (NDD) ................ 11
   3.2 DESIRE Directory Services ................................... 11
   4.0 Some Directions for TISDAG Next Steps ....................... 12
   4.1 Security support ............................................ 12
   4.2 WDSPs attributes and schemas  ............................... 12
   5.0 Some conclusions ............................................ 13
   6.0 Security Considerations ..................................... 13
   7.0 Acknowledgements ............................................ 13
   8.0 Authors' Addresses .......................................... 13
   9.0 References .................................................. 14
   Appendix -- Specific Software Issues and Deployment Experiences.. 15
   Full Copyright Statement ........................................ 18

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Overview of the TISDAG project

   As described in more detail in [TISDAG], the original intention of
   the TISDAG project was to provide the infrastructure for a national
   whitepages directory service.  To be effective, such an
   infrastructure needed to address the concrete realities of end-users'
   existing client software, as well as the needs of information
   providers ("Whitepages Directory Service Providers" -- WDSPs).  These
   realities include the existence of multiple protocols (so-called
   directory service access protocols, as well as more general Internet
   application protocols such as HTTP and SMTP).  The project was also
   sensitive to the fact that WDSPs have many good reasons for being
   reluctant to relinquish copies of their subscribers' personal data.




Eklof & Daigle               Informational