LDAP application intelligence

[Sri.Subramanian@software.com (Sri Subramanian)]

Hello,

I've had this burning question ever since I started to work on LDAP.

The thread on implementing referential integrity is somewhat pertinent
to this question. Since a Directory is a distributed data repository and
a lot of commercial applications are starting to use Directories, the
"goodness" of this data is important to the success of the application.
Yet, none of the standards talk about implementing application-mandated
constraints on the data. Is that then to be viewed as an implementation
issue? Or is the provisioning client expected to "know"?

Example of such constraints are in implementing referential integrity,
implementing new sytaxes (like enums) before they become standardized,
blessing attribute values when, say, there is a relationship between two
attributes in an entry.
 
Looking at OODBs, couldn't application intelligence be viewed as a
natural extension of describing data in Directories? If this question is
passé and has been beaten to death somewhere else, my apologies, and I'd
appreciate a pointer.

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