Re: Search over referrals (Re: LAST CALL: draft-ietf-ldapext-ref erral-00.txt)

[dboreham@netscape.com (David Boreham)]

Alan Lloyd wrote:

> > by the customer. But I'm struggling to see how this
> > affects distributed search, and even more what it has
> > to do with LDAP ! I need some more education.
> >
>         Its just the way in which one uses the DB that makes the
> difference - on can store objects as rows, etc or one can be smarter.
>         If one is smarter then one can determine what one has locally
> and if one has to fire of a distributed search - I assume LDAP servers
>
> do not do distribution so that is not a problem to them.

I presume you're talking specifically about chaining, which
LDAP servers don't support ? Reason I ask is because I
see this words "distribution" and "distributed" banded about,
but never defined. Presumably definition is in those expensive white
documents ?
Anyway, I can't answer for other vendors, but if a client
presented our server a search which required knowledge
of whether target entries were stored on another server,
we would resolve that query in much less than 1 millisecond.
It's just a case of maintaining the appropriate indices, and
not doing anything stupid. No rocket science involved, I think.

>         Eg single server  - get me three things of type x in 1,000,000
>
> entries, server has one thing of type x - server returns one x..
>         distributed servers - get me three things of type x in
> 3,000,000
> entries, server a has 1 x - and must fire off searches to server b and
>
> c, etc. eg the database design is critical to distributed performance.

Sounds pretty easy. Also sounds like something you
want to avoid doing because it will not scale.

>          LDAP does not do this so no worries eh!

Yes, life is pretty good here in LDAP-land.

> > Now: "directory info into filespace" ?
>         This was meant to say that RDBs are used for corporate info
> and
> that directories will underpin corporate systems - however some
> direcories use good old filespace - as they just deal with mail
> addresses.

I still don't understand this one.Are you saying that one kind of disk
block is somehow
better than another one ? Or some kind of disk block
managing code is better than another ?

>         Its an integrity issue re how the directory is applied. in the
>
> business.

I'll take your word for it. Around here wethink we have plenty of
integrity, are you
questioning ours ?