The document discusses whether LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is dead. It outlines that LDAP has been around since 1993 and defines an ecosystem of vendors and open source projects supporting LDAP servers and services. However, newer technologies using RESTful APIs and JSON are gaining popularity for cloud services. While LDAP is not yet dead, its future is uncertain as these newer standards and protocols become more widely adopted unless the LDAP community takes action to remain relevant.

1. Is LDAP Dead ?
LDAPCon 2011 - Heidelberg
Ludovic Poitou - ForgeRock AS
(cc) 2011 ForgeRock
Monday, October 10, 11

2. About me
- Ludovic Poitou
- ForgeRock: Director ForgeRock France,
Product Manager
- 1995-2010: Sun Microsystems
- Architect, Community Manager
- Directory Services team
(cc) 2010 ForgeRock France SAS
Monday, October 10, 11

3. LDAP
- 1993: RFC 1487 - X.500 Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol
- 1995: RFC 1777 - LDAPv2
- 1997: RFC 2251 - LDAPv3
- 2006: RFC 4510 - LDAPv3 revision
(cc) 2010 ForgeRock France SAS
Monday, October 10, 11

4. An Ecosystem
- Many Servers vendors:
- Apple, CA, IBM, Isode, Microsoft, Novell,
Oracle, Red Hat, UnboundID, eB2Bcom ...
- Optimal IdM, Quest (Symlabs), Radiant
Logic
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Monday, October 10, 11

5. An Ecosystem
- 5 active open source LDAP server projects
- Apache Directory Server
- LDAP.js
- OpenDJ
- OpenLDAP
- Port 389 (Red Hat directory server)
(cc) 2010 ForgeRock France SAS
Monday, October 10, 11

6. An Ecosystem
- An lots of active open source projects:
- Apache Directory Studio
- LSC-Project
- LDAP-ToolBox
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Monday, October 10, 11

7. Mature and Declining
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8. But why DEAD ?
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9. Developer’s dilema
- Too many technologies
- Selection happens
- Is LDAP relevant ?
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Monday, October 10, 11

10. HTTP, Rest, JSON
- It’s the new API
- Google, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare...
- Web Services
- Cloud
- No SQL databases
- Service Oriented Architecture
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Monday, October 10, 11

11. The new API
- JSON2LDAP
- http://nimbusds.com
- SCIM: Simple Cloud Identity Management
(aka Cloud Directory)
- https://sites.google.com/site/clouddir/home
- Virtual directory servers also have rest web
service access
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Monday, October 10, 11

12. Remember X.500 ?
- What happens with HTTP/JSON ?
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Monday, October 10, 11

13. Is LDAP Dead ?
- Not yet.
- But how long before it is ?
- Is there anything we can do ?
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14. © 2011 Hugh MacLeod's gapingvoid - gapingvoid.com
(cc) 2010 ForgeRock France SAS
Monday, October 10, 11