Subject: [Ietf-not43] back-ends

From: ehall at ehsco.com (Eric A. Hall)
Date: Tue Sep 9 17:10:52 2003

on 9/9/2003 2:11 PM Rick Wesson wrote:

> most of the new backend systems for servicing the :43 and :80 whois
> requests are built on SQL and OORDBMS database systems.

OpenLDAP has indirect support for SQL databases through ODBC, although
there is some configuration effort involved:

http://www.flatmtn.com/computer/Linux-LDAP.html

OpenLDAP has native support for lots of other databases:

http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin21/slapdconfig.html#General%20Backend%20Directives

Cumulatively, mapping existing database to OpenLDAP should be feasible if
there is an ODBC interface to the existing db, or a native driver.

Other LDAP servers will have their own requirements and db benefits.

The point here is that the db choice is irrelevant to LDAP the protocol,
just as it would be with BEEP+XML, except there is more work involved in
the latter.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/

---

From: wessorh at ar.com (Rick Wesson)
Date: Tue Sep 9 17:25:41 2003

> there is some configuration effort involved:

been there, done that, it didn't work. unstable, slow, didn't seem to
scale etc.

-rick

---

From: davidb at verisignlabs.com (David Blacka)
Date: Wed Sep 10 10:18:26 2003

> just as it would be with BEEP+XML, except there is more work involved in

I'm not sure on what you are basing this conclusion.  Having implemented 
both, I disagree.

-- 
David Blacka    <[email-masked]> 
Sr. Engineer    Verisign Applied Research

---

From: ehall at ehsco.com (Eric A. Hall)
Date: Wed Sep 10 10:22:52 2003

on 9/10/2003 9:13 AM David Blacka wrote:

>> The point here is that the db choice is irrelevant to LDAP the
>> protocol, just as it would be with BEEP+XML, except there is more
>> work involved in the latter.
> 
> I'm not sure on what you are basing this conclusion.  Having
> implemented both, I disagree.

There isn't a generic off-the-shelf BEEP+XML server, never mind one that
supports multiple databases as plug-ins

---

From: davidb at verisignlabs.com (David Blacka)
Date: Wed Sep 10 11:50:50 2003

> supports multiple databases as plug-ins

Yes there is.  I wrote one: <http://iris.verisignlabs.com/#WhatIsIRISServ>.

---

From: anewton at ecotroph.net (Andrew Newton)
Date: Wed Sep 10 12:42:11 2003

> been there, done that, it didn't work. unstable, slow, didn't seem to

Yet another data point to suggest this isn't the correct approach.

We didn't use OpenLDAP; we went with a commercial solution.  At the end 
of the day, they wanted to charge us $1 per entry for data in a database 
they didn't sell us accessed via a plug-in they didn't write.  Coupled 
with the fact that a major security vulnerability in their software 
forced us to upgrade to a version of their software that omitted the 
database plug-in API, this was not a workable solution.

-andy