Subject: Con#2 LDAP lacks the capability of replication
Author: eLDAP
In response to: Con#1 LDAP lacks the capability of transaction
Posted on: 12/27/2011 05:31:34 PM
Lack of a standard replication mechanism is one of the biggest complaints from enterprise deployers of LDAP. This cause LDAP vendors have to cook their own methodology to replicate data among LDAP servers. There are typical two types of replication architecture: master-slave & multi-master.
As an example, SunOne directory server is one of the early LDAP servers which are based on master-slave architecture. That means one server is designated as the master and contains a writable copy of the directory contents, and the other servers are subordinate or secondary and have read-only copies. When the master server is updated, it replicates the change to the other subordinate servers. This model is much simpler and easier to maintain than a multi-master architecture, but it is also much more limiting especially for global deployments.
Active Directory is one of the first directories to support true multimaster replication where any number of servers can be updated. However, having multimaster capabilities does not come without its pitfalls. The replication is one of the most labor-intensive and troublesome areas within Active Directory.
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> On 12/27/2011 05:12:58 PM eLDAP wrote:
An LDAP directory should not be treated like a database. There is no transactional capability within LDAP, which means it is not possible to roll back changes or to make a series of changes in a single transaction as in a traditional database.
The lack of transactional capability makes LDAP directories a bad choice for systems that depend on transaction or order processing, such as banking and booking systems.
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