Directories, Directory Synchronization and Virtual Directories

INTRODUCTION Directory, directory synchronization and virtual directory technologies are essential building blocks for deployment of an identity management strategy. At a superficial level, each technology serves a similar purpose: to provide applications (or end users) with identity and group membership information for resources under management. These resources are most typically users, but can also be other managed resources such as application instances, shared network resources, or application meta-user accounts. While these technologies serve a similar purpose, however, each has its own deployment characteristics. Understanding what these respective technologies do and how and when to deploy them is essential to supporting a manageable environment.