Re: Providing a DS: re:scenarios for Directory Synchronization

[Colin Robbins <[e-mail]>]

   >I, also, feel that Email requirements are going to
   >force corporations to go for X.500 directory service MUCH SOONER than 
   >every thing else. 

Yes, and corporations are starting to look very closely at X.500.  On
the 'floor' at the recent EMA and EEMA tradeshows the talk was all
about how X.500 has now arrived, particularly after the multi-vendor
interworking demonstration at EEMA.  Its been a long time coming but...

   >Further, E-mail directory service is very closely
   >linked with the mail gateway & Directory synchronisation products 
   >which are build by different vendors. Different vendors for mail
   >gateway and Directory synchronisation products need to have a "common
   >vision of Directory schema". Otherwise, organisations will be stuck with
   >a specific vendor (just like a propietory story of legacy systems).
   >Hence, before an organisation starts on a directory service as 
   >defined in Scenario-1, somehow, this piece of the puzzle has to fit 
   >with the other corporate requirements for Directory service. One 
   >solution is to standardize a schema for mail gateway & Direc. Synch. 
   >requirements. 

There are actually two different thing here.  Schema is one, and
synchronisation is the other.  Outside of synchronisation there are
reasons to have common schema understandings between organisation, and
indeed I think there is OIW work going on looking at such issues.

On the synchronisation side, there need to be common agreements as to
how to make data available to X.500.  Such an agreement is the
Directory Sync format defined by the XAPIA based upon the 1993 X.500
DISP protocol.

Putting these two together, to synchronise you don't actually need
schema agreements, DISP will work fine without.  However, once
synchronised, for an application to make use of the data you do need
common schema definitions.  One way to arrive at a common set of
schema would be to update RFC 1274 (dated 1991) to merge in the
X.500(93) schema and extend it to meet current requirements.


Colin