kolab ldap using SQL backend

[Martin Konold]

Am Montag, 31. Januar 2005 10:25 schrieb Richard Bos:

Hi Richard.

> Out of interest, when does one use an ldap server and when is an DB
> applicable?

LDAP is an standard while all DBs use proprietary dialects. LDAP is network 
aware from the beginning and is supported by many important applications 
including MS OL, Lotus Notes and Netscape/Mozilla.

> AFAIK LDAP is used for data that is hardly changes, but is 
> frequently read.

Yes.

> Which is the case for user information (like uid and 
> such). But when this information gets combined with other information such
> as company name, and company information, it seems that the data is better
> stored in a relational database, isn't?

Well, this kind of information is also rather static in nature.

> I can imagine that in the end it might be better to have just all data in
> an database and to have some data (the data that an email client or an
> login process expect from ldap) to be copied into an ldap database isn't?

A lot of installations indeed use relational database as a source for the LDAP 
repository.

> In case information that exists in the ldap server is updated in the
> relational db, a function should update the ldap server.
>
> Is my assumption correct?

Yes, you may look at Oracle OID for further details.

Regards,
-- martin

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