OpenLDAP – Open Source Directory Management

Directory services like OpenLDAP act as containers for directories (databases) that can store various information. Such directory servers can be used if

1. a hierarchically structured data storage is requested, and if
2. these data should high-performantly be retrievable via the network .

The entries consist of attributes that are specified by object classes as mandatory or optional attributes. Very often, OpenLDAP is used as an exceptionally scalable (with hundreds of millions of entries) and highly performant (with 10,000 accesses per second and more) authentication server; but also any other form of data can be stored. Moreover, any customer-specific extension can be programmed via an overlay mechanism (a plugin interface).

Besides the OpenLDAP packages from Linux distributions or self compiled installations, Symas OpenLDAP is the most stable version of OpenLDAP distributions that are currently available.

Behind Symas OpenLDAP is Symas Corporation, a US-American partner of DAASI International, whose employees are among others the main developers of OpenLDAP. The company is specialized on open-source based solutions for IAM infrastructures. Symas Corporation is the company with the most comprehensive OpenLDAP knowledge.

The product comes as a pre-compiled package for different Linux distributions and offers – depending on the version „Silver“ or „Gold“ – several compiled modules as well as support. Distributions that will no longer include OpenLDAP in future releases are also supported.

Symas relies on proven open source software for the OpenLDAP distribution, as for example OpenSSL, Cyrus SASL, Heimdal Kerberos or Berkeley DB, but offers at the same time with the database LMDB (Lightning Memory-Mapped Database) or the Hash method PBKDF2 contemporary technologies for better performance and higher security.

The advantages of Symas OpenLDAP:

• high performance and high availability
• up to date with the latest security patches
• includes many enhancements before they are available in general release
• third-level support by the developers at Symas (24×7 support available in the „Gold“ version)
• direct packaging by the main developers
• independence of Linux distributions

Further information about it can be found here.

With DAASI International, you have a strong partner!

The team of DAASI International has many years of experience working with OpenLDAP, gathered in countless projects and in cooperations with various customers. Furthermore, DAASI International was the major organizer of the LDAPCon 2011, hosted the 4th OpenLDAP Developer’s Day (2006), has been exhibitor at respective German trade fairs such as LinuxTag and Systems, and has valuable contacts to the developer team of OpenLDAP.