Re: Directory enabled web server anyone?

["Kevin Myer" <kevin_myer@elanco.k12.pa.us>]

Its a pipedream I'm sure but some day I dream of one common standard means
of storing information for a heterogenous mix of systems.  Of course, even
standards get "value-added" features, like our friends in Redmond like to
add but your idea of a self-configuring webserver is what I had in mind.
I believe we are slowly headed there (somewhere - who knows where) and
LDAP provides one solution, albeit not perfect (no solution is perfect,
except maybe to take all the computers and network devices in this world
and dump them in the ocean and go back to using smoke signals...but then
what do you do on cloudy days?? ;)

I'm cheered by the direction that some players are taking by making their
devices LDAP aware - it would be marvelous if everything was LDAP aware.
A lot of people/companies (I think) seem to have a mindset that LDAP is
useful for storing info about people but thats changing too, as players
like Microsoft use it to try yet again to simplify Windows configuration
issues (is it possible to make anything more complicated than the
registry - guess time will tell if they "get it right" with LDAP).  Of
course, with mountains of configuration info, phone numbers, email
addresses, etc., the design of a server becomes of utmost importance (just
how do you design, categorize, and index potentially millions of pieces of
information in a logical (to humans and machines) way, as well as deal
with the limitations of hardware - not everyone can afford a Beowulf to
run an LDAP server).

A while back there was a post about DNS and LDAP.  When I read it, I think
I partially misunderstood it - I was envisioning an LDAP server replacing
a DNS server.  However, I believe its the sort of information storage I'm
getting at above - use LDAP to store configuration informaton about zones,
IP addresses, access control, then make DNS LDAP aware and have it
dynamically update as needed.  Insert any network service for DNS in the
above paragraph and insert any application for web server in Bernard's
original post and you have a partially LDAP aware world.  When hardware
comes around, you have a fuller LDAP aware world.  

I have to say that one of the biggest pains is trying to manage disparate
"nests" of information, be it configuration, personal, or whatever.  In my
current employment situation, we simply can't afford to have an NT server
and workstation expert, DNS expert, web server expert, UNIX expert, Mac
expert, networking expert, etc.  We've got basically a budget for one
person (which is probably why I feel uncomfortably stretched with less
than a month before the kids and, probably worse, teachers return to
school).  But by golly if my task was reduced to managing an LDAP
information source, it would be a whole heck of a lot easier.  We might
actually have true plug and play everything.

Of course, that all comes at the risk of losing some of the knowledge
behind what is really going on.  We risk creating another IT class of
people who know only how to run LDAP setup wizards, much like we currently
have a class of people who bask in the glory of running NT wizards (one of
the only reasons NT ever got a foothold in the enterprise IMHO).  But
maybe that wouldn't be so bad - mail server went down but LDAP looks ok?
Give me a call - at $500/hr, I'll fix it for you.

Well, thats it for my ramblings.  Its been a long day - scattered
scheduled power outages happening before they were scheduled (thank
goodness the UPSes worked), losing sound on my Linux box for a whole day
(ISA sound card doesn't like to work when ISA FM radio card is installed
but doesnt' have drivers in the kernel), and finding some overlooked Y2K
non-compliant systems.

Kevin

-- 
     ~        Kevin M. Myer
    . .       Network/System Administrator
    /V\       ELANCO School District
   // \
  /(   )\
   ^`~'^