I have always looked for a good way to explain to people what LDAP
directories essentially are. I discovered that the file system analogy
works very well.
This is my working version, as synthesised on my blog:
http://blog.dzhuvinov.com/?p=1085
Feel welcome to use it in your own presentations. If you have
suggestions for improvement I'd be glad to receive them.
Vladimir
***
Overall organisation
* A file system consists of files in a tree-like structure.
* An LDAP directory consists of entries in a tree-like structure.
Data types
* A file in a file system is an arbitrary blob of text or binary
data.
* A directory entry is a collection of attributes, or name / value
pairs. Attributes may be text or binary. They may be mandatory
or optional, single or multi-valued.
Naming
* A file in a file system has a name, e.g. "tax-report-2010.xml".
The file name must be unique within the containing folder.
* An entry in a directory branch has a relative distinct name
(RDN), e.g. "cn=Alice Wonderland". The RDN comes from an existing
name/value pair in the entry that was chosen to become the
entry's name (or title). RDNs must also be unique within the
containing directory branch.
Global naming
* A file in a file system is uniquely identified by its path, e.g.
"/home/vladimir/taxes/tax-report-2010.xml".
* An entry in a directory is identified by its distinct name (DN),
which is formed by the chain of RDNs leading all the way to the
directory root, e.g.
"cn=Alice Wonderland, ou=people, dc=wonderland, dc=net".
--
Vladimir Dzhuvinov :: www.nimbusds.com :: [email protected]
NimbusDS : Nimble directory services for your web and cloud apps
