[Fedora-directory-users] LDAP and RDBMS Integration

[Bill Bailey]

Hi,

 

I noticed on the list of features an item indicating that data
interoperability plug-ins are available to allow the use of an RDBMS as
a data source, but I'm having trouble locating the specifics (e.g. which
databases, what sort of integration, etc.) in the documentation. Anyone
have any pointers on where I can find more information on this?

 

In particular, I'm struggling with whether to use a directory server for
user management or a database. If I store users in my LDAP directory
(e.g. username, password, name, address, phone, etc.), there is still
user data that I need to store in a database (e.g. transaction data or
other frequently modified data) ... and I need to be able to correlate
the two. For example, for reporting I may need to display both the basic
user info and demographic information that is so well suited for a
directory alongside data that comes from a database. This seems to me
problematic since the data models and query languages are different. And
even if I could make the LDAP data look like something I could query
with SQL ... and join with real RDBMS tables ... it would seem likely
that performance might be less than great.

 

My thinking is that if I could get the LDAP server to use e.g. MySQL
under the covers for storage, but I could still get access (read-only)
to the underlying tables, I might be able to have the best of both
worlds (assuming the underlying table structure was amenable to being
joined to my tables without to many contortions). I'm guessing my
dilemma isn't new ... has anyone else struggled with this and, if so,
how did you resolve it? And have been satisfied with the solution you
selected?


Thanks for any input or comments.

 

Bill Bailey