Ldap Metadirectory Provisioning Methodology: A Step by Step Method to Implementing Ldap Based Metadirectory Provisioning & Identity Management Systems

Rating:
Summary: Wide scope, deep content
Review: This book not only clearly explains LDAP from technical and practical perspectives, but contains a full implementation plan with tasks and deliverables. Because the material technically accurate and highly detailed, and the implementation plan is solid this is an essential book for anyone implementing LDAP.

The book is organized into four parts.

Part I covers the basics of LDAP, including history, how it works at a fundamental level, and applications. Part II, Directory-Powered Systems, goes deep into details of provisioning, access controls, identity management, single sign-on, RBAC, unified messaging and specific environments (portals, supply chain, EDI, etc.). Part III is a 19-phase implementation plan that completely describes design and implementation of a solution, starting at business and technical analysis, and culminating with migration and deployment. This plan calls out tasks and deliverables, has quality gates (making good use of peer reviews at every major stage), and incorporates capacity planning, fault-tolerance and cost factors. This is one of the most well thought out, complete implementation plans for any type of project that I've encountered, and is the reason why this book is so valuable.

In Part IV, Other Perspectives, this book addresses every obvious and not-so-obvious consideration of which you need to be aware. For example, it's characteristics of an LDAP-compliant directory, or standards are obvious (and are included), but the book also covers directories from an OO design perspective, including discussions on CORBA, .NET, J2EE, among others. I also thought the discussions of how directory services were (or will be) affected by the Patriot Act, HIPAA, and other laws, both US and European, were worthwhile additions to this book that will influence a subset of readers who are subject to various laws cited within this part of the book.

This is an A-to-Z book in my opinion - it covers the basics, leads you into the details, and shows you how to implement LDAP using a thorough, workable plan. If you get only one book on LDAP this is the one I recommend.