Re: Comments from Christian H. on LDAP

[Russ Wright <[e-mail]>]

> Regarding the modify operations: the problem I have is with their
> presence in the DAP in general, not merely in LDAP, for the following
> reasons:
> 
> 1- Allowing real time modification of the data does make the DSA
> software much more complex. You need authentication, but you also need
> journalling of updates, ability to recover, maintenance of index
> files, etc.

I agree.  Some people may not have any use for modifies.  They can buy an 
X.500 product that doesn't support it (and pay less).

> 3- Allowing real time modification *by the end user*, as opposed to
> modification by an administrator, gives the user the impression that
> the X.500 data base contains the "primary" version of the data. What
> happens if user Joe modifies its phone number Thursday but the X.500
> base is restored from an "up to date" version of the payroll data base
> Friday?

If you allow non-authoritative data to be modified in X.500, you must 
provide an automatic way to transfer the information back to the 
authoritative source.  I believe that the University of Michigan is doing 
this.


Russ