Re: FW: running DB on different machine than slapd

[Howard Chu <hyc@symas.com>]

Kelly, Terence P wrote:
> I'm a researcher and one of my interests is in
> the trade-offs between performance and other
> properties (e.g., fault isolation/security)
> that various software architectures offer.
>
> Furthermore I want to include OpenLDAP in an
> apples-to-apples comparison involving other
> applications with multi-tier architectures in
> which the various tiers run on separate physical
> machines.

> Therefore I'm interested in any way of running
> the underlying database on a different physical
> machine then the slapd application, even if the
> performance overhead is substantial.
>
> Does that make sense?
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can
> offer.

It doesn't sound like an apples-to-apples comparison is really possible, since 
the primary mode of operation for the OpenLDAP server is monolithic.

However, you can of course configure OpenLDAP's back-sql to talk to a remote 
RDBMS server if that's what you really want to do. I don't consider this a 
realistic use of OpenLDAP, but the support exists for those masochistic enough 
to go there.

On the other hand, if what you're really testing is multi-tier from the client 
perspective, then it should suffice to call the LDAP client the first tier, and 
a remote OpenLDAP server the second tier. If you want to introduce more levels 
of indirection you can simply stack back-ldap proxies between the client and 
the ultimate data server, but again, adding layers for the sake of layering 
seems pretty unrealistic to me.
--
  -- Howard Chu
  Chief Architect, Symas Corp.  http://www.symas.com
  Director, Highland Sun        http://highlandsun.com/hyc/
  Chief Architect, OpenLDAP     http://www.openldap.org/project/