Could someone please explain LDAP?

Question

I often hear things like \"Can we load our employee info using LDAP?\" Yet, the title \"Lightweight Directory Access Protocol\" makes me think of it as a protocol rather than a

Answer 1

Yes, LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a protocol that runs on TCP/IP.

It is used to access directory services, like Microsoft's Active Directory, or Sun ONE Directory Server.

A directory service is a kind of database or data store, but not necessarily a relational database. The structure is usually much simpler, storing hierarchical collections of name-value pairs, e.g. lastName=Smith, firstName=John.