5.27.1 What can I use the OpenLDAPService for?
LDAP servers are used to make commonly used directory information more easily available across multiple applications that could be running on multiple servers. The OpenLDAPService is designed to help you interface with LDAP servers more easily.
Following are two examples of where you might use the OpenLDAPService.
To access an LDAP directory containing company contact details
A large organization may have multiple applications that each contains their own repository of employee contact information, often in duplication. To overcome this, they may decide to create an LDAP directory of contact information to centralize this data. Every application that needs to access employee contact information could access this LDAP directory. By using the OpenLDAPService you could very easily write the code required to access this repository of contact information for any number of your applications. These client applications could be running on different servers.
To access an LDAP directory containing User ID, Password, and Access Rights
We are all familiar with holding different User Ids and passwords for the different applications that we use. And we are also familiar with the tedious process of resetting those passwords because we have forgotten what they are. To reduce this problem, an organization may decide to create a central repository of users and their passwords and access rights in an LDAP directory so this information is easier to maintain and to control. You could then use the OpenLDAPService to authenticate your user Logons against this LDAP directory instead of doing so against an isolated local repository.