Schema Publishing in X.500 Directory

The X.500 directory provides a powerful mechanism for storing and retrieving information about objects of interest. To interpret the information stored in the directory, the schema must be known to all the components of the directory. The rapid increase in the number of schemas and the relatively slow pace of standardization and subsequent publication has given rise to the challenge of making the schema accessible to all the components of the directory. In this paper , we address this issue and present a strategy using the existing mechanisms of the directory. We present a naming scheme for naming schema objects, a meta-schema for storing schema objects. We discuss the procedures for bootstrap-ping the DSAs by loading the schema from the directory and for fetching unknown schema from the directory at runtime. The procedures involve an algorithmic retrieval of schemas from the directory. The algorithm used is presented and the design details are discussed. The actual implementation is under progress.