Andersen's L-Service

Directory consultancy

It is not a straightforward exercise to establish a well-functioning directory. The success and usefulness of a directory are dependent on the organisation making all the right choices.

Assistance is provided in the following areas:

• X.500 education/seminars - One or two days seminar available customised for the particular situation. It may include an introduction to ASN.1.
• Identification of requirements - Before procuring a directory system, the requirements on the system must be determined. The requirement study should include:
  • what the initial load should be;
  • identification of the different user groups;
  • an estimate of the number of users in each user group;
  • an analysis of the requirements of different users groups for information access;
  • response time requirements;
  • sizing;
  • integration with other services;
  • Requirement on user interface.
• Naming and information structure:
  • what information items the directory shall be hold (names of persons, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, employee numbers, etc.);
  • how such information items (attributes) should be organised in directory entries;
  • what the relationship among different entry types shall be;
  • the naming structure based on the entry relationship and general naming principles.
• Procurement specification - what should be considered in a procurement specification and what should be vendor selection criteria:
  • flexible schema and name structure support;
  • access control support;
  • administrative tools, including access control customisation;
  • tools for import/export of information;
  • back-up and recovery features;
  • Service and maintenance.
• Operational architecture:
  • distribution across directory servers;
  • the requirement for replication shadowing.
• Data management strategy:
  • scope of initial load;
  • update strategies;
  • quality of data (accuracy, completeness and timeliness;
  • distribution of administrative roles;
  • Use feed back (reporting mechanism).