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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent introduction to LDAP
Review: I will admit upfront that I know the author so some of my views may be a bit biased, but I feel I can objectively highly recommend this book for IT folks who may be new to LDAP or just want to know more about it. Over the past few years many IT admins have been thrust into LDAP because of its use in Windows 2000 Active Directory or as part of an enterprise directory project. Personally I fall into both categories. I like the two-part format with both an explaination of the standards and technology, and then examples of how it was implemented by different vendors. This makes the book widely applicable. I feel the text is quite readable and the examples are clear. It does a good job addressing the how and why questions about LDAP. I highly recommend the book for those getting started with LDAP or wanting to better understand the concepts of something they're already using. For those who are Active Directory admins, I also recommend 'Inside Active Directory' by Kouti from the same publisher. The combination of the two books will give you a strong understanding of how Active Directory works from a directory services perspective. You'll find yourself thinking 'So that is why it works like that.'
Rating: 
Summary: A BEGINNER'S DEPENDABLE 'LDAP' HANDBOOK
Review: In his book, "LDAP Directories Explained: An Introduction and Analysis", Brian Arkills used subtle analysis to unveil the underlying principles of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. This book employed a very practical approach; and included the most recent advances in LDAP technology.
Both newcomers and intermediates would cherish how it explained the basics of the TCP/IP stacks; particularly, how it can be used to extract information from a hierarchial directory such as the X.500. It also gave useful suggestions on how LDAP learners could comb through data when surmising or searching for a particular piece of information, (e.g. a security certificate, an e-mail address, or similar information).
In conclusion, this is an essential guide, which should provide any LDAP beginner (or enthusiast) with all the information he (or she) may need concerning this network protocol. It is worth taking a look at!
Rating:
Summary: A BEGINNER'S DEPENDABLE 'LDAP' HANDBOOK
Review: In his book, "LDAP Directories Explained: An Introduction and Analysis", Brian Arkills used subtle analysis to unveil the underlying principles of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. This book employed a very practical approach; and included the most recent advances in LDAP technology.
Both newcomers and intermediates would cherish how it explained the basics of the TCP/IP stacks; particularly, how it can be used to extract information from a hierarchial directory such as the X.500. It also gave useful suggestions on how LDAP learners could comb through data when surmising or searching for a particular piece of information, (e.g. a security certificate, an e-mail address, or similar information).
In conclusion, this is an essential guide, which should provide any LDAP beginner (or enthusiast) with all the information he (or she) may need concerning this network protocol. It is worth taking a look at!
Rating: 
Summary: Am I missing something?
Review: Perhaps I just bought the wrong book for what I wanted to do, or maybe I just don't get it, but in either case, this book left me very underwhelmed.
I work at an ISP where we use LDAP for a number of purposes, from authenticating customers connecting to our network, to e-mail filtering, to htaccess authentication on our internal-use web servers. While I am comfortable using an LDAP browser to manage our users in LDAP, I really wanted more of an idea about how to set up and run an LDAP directory, so I bought this book to help me understand LDAP schemas.
While this book does describe a lot of the background to LDAP directories, it really didn't do much to fill in what I am missing. How do you design an LDAP schema? How do you know when to use ou=, o=, etc.?
On the plus side, I really *DID* appreciate the overview of various LDAP products currently available, and was pleased to see that all of the LDAP products I have used at work (OpenLDAP, iPlanet Directory Server and, or course, Active Directory) were described, along with their relative strengths and weaknesses. However, I really expected a little more meat--and maybe not quite as much background--about implementing an LDAP directory than I found in this book.
In short, if you want a general overview of LDAP directories, this might be what you want, but if you are looking for a "how to" guide, you probably should keep looking.
Rating:
Summary: Most Accurate Book Title. Ever.
Review: This is the book for people like me who
had heard about directories, but couldn't
get past the (&(cn=foo*)(ou=*Bar*)) notation
to figure out what was going on. The
book does an excellent job explaining how
LDAP directories can and should work
within an enterprise. Brian Arkills has
written a wonderful book. Anyone who wants to learn some of the 'Why?'
about MS Active Directory would do well to
start here. The first half of the book lays
out the basics of directories, with numerous
references to standards documents (RFC's).
The rest iterates through popular LDAP
directory implementations, what they have to
offer, how they are 'special' and why you
might want to use them.
Rating:
Summary: Most Accurate Book Title. Ever.
Review: This is the book for people like me who
had heard about directories, but couldn't
get past the (&(cn=foo*)(ou=*Bar*)) notation
to figure out what was going on. The
book does an excellent job explaining how
LDAP directories can and should work
within an enterprise. Brian Arkills has
written a wonderful book. Anyone who wants to learn some of the 'Why?'
about MS Active Directory would do well to
start here. The first half of the book lays
out the basics of directories, with numerous
references to standards documents (RFC's).
The rest iterates through popular LDAP
directory implementations, what they have to
offer, how they are 'special' and why you
might want to use them.
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