Customer Reviews

Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book gives a good architect's or project manager's understanding of LDAP and of the difficulties inherent in deploying any complex mission critical software system. The book covers schema and name space design, security considerations, legacy integration, capacity planning, systems management and procurement. All of these issues are discussed in a vendor neutral tone, though the references are a bit heavy on Netscape publications.

This is not a programming book and this is not a product manual. For architects, this is a concept book rather than a reference book: After reading this book you will still need to spend hours pouring over your vendor's manuals figuring out how to implement your design. For a project manager, this book may deserve the "bible" moniker, with the checklists something that can be used to guide the deployment of many new systems. While there is one, quite good, chapter on application design, application design is not the focus. Tim and Mark's earlier book covers that topic in much more detail.

The book, at 850 pages, is long, but it should be easy going for a database professional. The book itself looks like it was laid out with an HTML browser's "Print" command.

If you are considering an LDAP deployment, using any LDAP server, you will find this book invaluable during the evaluation, planning and deployment process.

And that is where it excells! I have actually read this book cover to cover once, and now I use it as a good reference on LDAP. It is not exactly geared to the implementor, but rather to both the Designer/Architect as well as those who have to "sell" LDAP to an organization. If you are new to LDAP, or are going to be doing any sort of design work, this is the first book you should read, its introduction to LDAP is the best I have seen, and although it is weighty (and not just the size of the book) it is quite comprehendable if read in order.

Background:
LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a software protocol that enables locating organizations, individuals, and other resources such as files and devices in a network, whether it is a public Internet or a corporate Intranet.

As LDAP adoption and deployment is increasing, the expanded second edition of "Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services" is published with more materials from the authors on the protocol and how to apply it effectively in different network environments.

Book Organization:
The book consists of twenty-six chapters divided into six major parts:
- Directory services overview and history
- Designing your directory service
- Deploying your directory service
- Maintaining your directory service
- Leveraging your directory service
- Case studies
The book begins by defining directory services and what they can offer for an organization then gets into the specifics of how LDAP organizes directories and handles queries with coverage of LDAPv3 extensions and the Netscape Directory Server.

The books then moves on to explore a wide range of topics such as designing directory services, naming, topology, replication, privacy, security deploying, directory services, implementation pitfalls, cost analysis, maintaining directory services, troubleshooting, and creating and enabling directory-service
applications.

The book offers help and advice for comparing "LDAP-compliant" products on features, management tools, reliability, performance, scalability, security, standards conformance, interoperability, cost, and other criteria. Then, having chosen a vendor, you'll walk through piloting your application
and testing it for performance, scalability, and reliability. Finally, the authors show how to put the system into production, keep it running smoothly and securely, provide for backups and disaster recovery, and make improvements over time.

The final section of the book presents four thorough deployment case studies, showing how diverse organizations can use LDAP as a simple, versatile solution for a wide variety of problems.

Is the book for you?
The book gives a good architect's or project manager's understanding of LDAP and of the difficulties inherent in deploying any complex mission critical software system.

For architects, this is a concept book rather than a reference book: After reading this book you will still need to refer to product manuals or reference books to help you figure out how to implement your design.

For a project manager, this book is valuable especially with the checklists, something that can be used to guide the deployment of many new systems.

Software developers would read the book to understand more on issues such as redundancy, security and privacy.

For IT professionals who are relatively new to the area, it is the book to read on LDAP.

General Comments:

- There are many specialized terms that are used without being defined or before being defined.

- There is a lot of superfluous material bringing the book to over 900+ pages requiring constant filtering on the part of the reader.

- The book offer more concepts that practical help. You will find a lot of managerial discussions, including talking to your users, piloting your directory and getting feedback. If you are looking to learn how to technically implement LDAP, these discussions will not interest you much.

- The book assumes that you have a good understanding of LDAP and Directory Services. The introduction chapters do not cover many basic concepts, many terms are not explained until used several dozen times, and there is no glossary.

- Managers will appreciate the sections on product selection, piloting an LDAP service, costing, disaster recovery, long-term maintenance, monitoring, and application development in a directory-centric world complete the picture.

- Several case studies are presented, including useful sidebars entitled "20/20 Hindsight".

The Good Stuff:
- Provides a lot of theoretical concepts
- Covers all aspects of LDAP deployment
- Discusses the design aspects of LDAP
- Designed to meet multiple needs
- Minimal knowledge of networking is assumed

The Not So Good Stuff:
- Not much on practical implementations
- Sometimes the explanations are too long
- With over 900 pages, the book is too long
- Sometimes hard to follow the line of thought
- A glossary of technical terms is not provided

Conclusion:

If you are planning to work with LDAP whether you are a network manager, a software developer, or an IT administrator, the book provides a lot of information which will help you define your directory requirements in detail and design a directory service that meets them. You will also ind the book valuable during the evaluation, planning and deployment process. However, if you are a programmer who is looking for a programming book or some kind of a product manual to help you setup LDAP services, this
is not the book for you. It is mostly targeted for architects as it is more of a concept book rather than a reference book.

In general, the text is full of advices and real-world deployment examples to help the readers choose the path that makes the most sense for their specific organization. I personally would recommend the book as a general
overview of LDAP and deployment scenarios.

Overall it's a book for people who need to get familiar and to START designing/prototyping a LDAP system without any background on the LDAP technology itself. I have to skip lots of chapters (related to general business, project management, cost control,corporate politics..) in order to understand the essential LDAP schema/attributes and the overall LDAP design patterns. The authors does give some very good real life design examples at the end. I am looking for a 'LDAP Design Patterns', this book partly ( 30% ?) covers this topic.

I fully agree with aethyrnet. This is a very complete book. It is clearly aimed towards implementors and explains all they need to know. If you someone wants to understand the principles of the protocol or how to program with it there are better books, such as the ones by Barbara Wilkinson or John Rhoton. This book should be required reading for any system administrator in charge of an LDAP server. Why do it wrong when you can understand the concepts and get it right from the beginning?

This book assumes that you have a good understanding of LDAP and Directory Services, The intro chapters do not cover many basic concepts, many terms are not explained until used several dozen times, and there is no glossary. If you don't know what 'dn: uid=joeb, ou=People, o=foo.com' means, you will get easily confused and frustrated by this book.

That said, this is an excellent reference book, contains many useful examples, and goes into great detail about LDAP and directory services.

...this should be the one! One of the best indepth discussions on the LDAP protocol and its uses I have read. This book is one of the few that I own on LDAP that has no dust on it, and the pages are fraying from beign thumbed so often...

While there isn't as much programming info that I would want, it is understandable, as teh book is quite indepth, and a programmer should be able to build on the knowledge he or she will gain from reading it.

This is by far the best technical "manual" that I have picked up in a LONG time. The book is concise, well written and full of information on the LDAP protocol.

This is a must read for anyone involved in the Directory business, or who is having one implemented for them!

This long-awaited book definitively answers the question "Why is LDAP so important to Internet-based computing?" Furthermore, it answers the equally important questions concerning how to go about actually building LDAP-based solutions.

It very effectively describes LDAP as a strategic service, traces through complete details regarding design and implementation, and includes information on how small or large organizations can "survive" migration to directory-based computing.

Real-world practitioners will appreciate the sections on product selection, piloting an LDAP service, and costing. Finally, disaster recovery, long-term maintenance, monitoring, and application development in a directory-centric world complete the picture. As a bonus, several fairly deep case studies are presented, including very useful sidebars entitled "20/20 Hindsight".

For those of us who have lived through several large-scale LDAP designs/deployments, this book will be a great reference. For IT professionals and/or architects who are relatively new to the area, it will be invaluable.

The authors jokingly refer to the book as the "LDAP bible" - but that's not an altogether outlandish description.

I have been designing and implementing LDAP instances for a few years now and I can honestly say, after reading all other LDAP offerings out there, this IS the Bible. If you are new to LDAP or wish to have some more information or gain fresh ideas, this is the book to buy.