title: HP and OpenLDAP link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2004/08/30/hp-and-openldap/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 763 created: 2004/08/30 14:46:00 created_gmt: 2004/08/30 14:46:00 comment_status: open post_name: hp-and-openldap status: publish post_type: post

HP and OpenLDAP

Earlier this month the OpenLDAP Project had their 3rd annual Developer’s Day. While I missed the conference myself (I don’t travel, and even if I did my employer would have never paid for this one), I found the slide presentations archived on the project site very interesting. One that especially caught my eye was this:

www.openldap.org/conf/odd-sandiego-2004/Neil.pdf

The big news to me was that HP is moving off Sun’s directory and onto OpenLDAP as their core enterprise directory in October. In fact, as the slides show, they’ve already made the switch for their extranet.

The slides pretty much confirmed my own view of the readiness of OpenLDAP for the enterprise, with most of the same caveats I’ve raised to my management when we’ve discussed it. HP’s approach was to work with OpenLDAP leader Symas Corporation to develop the enhancements they required.

HP’s team are the same guys whose homegrown LDAP sync tool, used during the HP and Compaq merger to sync their disparate directories, can be now purchased by outsiders for $20,000.

Two of my remaining reservations, internal application reliance on proprietary features of the Netscape/Sun Directory series (mainly, Server Side Sort) and write performance (OpenLDAP used to be abyssmal, while Sun was always on top), are not addressed in the Developer Day presentation. The former is really a matter for internal standards enforcement, the latter may not be the issue it once was, now that OpenLDAP 2.2 has gone stable with its new Berkeley DB backend.

Copyright 2004-2019 Phil Lembo