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

LDAP is a protocol created in response to the complexity of the X.500 family of protocols. It is intended to represent a hierarchical directory structure. The X.500 standard was originally intended to be used over a complete OSI layer stack and was created to fulfill the requirements of the telecom industry. LDAP was designed to use TCP/IP to provide similar functionality without the extra overhead. You can find information on X.500, OSI and LDAP on wikipedia. X.500 and OSI are both covered in most data communications textbooks as well.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.500
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Systems_Interconnection
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Directory_Access_Protocol