Most experts think business drivers will force such directory integration on the enterprise in two to three years, but IT executives are not happy about the technologies to support it. We won't be able to do it with one infrastructure. That is because integrating corporate directories with the outside world involves many thorny issues, especially a lack of solid standards. Without standards, companies say they must piece together disparate systems themselves, creating additional work and inflating costs. IT executives are growing tired of hearing about XML as the Holy Grail of interoperability while XML's potential problems are ignored.
Critics say vendors preach standards support but continue to extend standards in proprietary ways.
If we could solve the issues around standards and the extensions to standards, we could solve our interoperability problems. The industry lacks convergence on standard schemas, and that causes issues in interoperability and forces us to live with the pariah of metadirectory translations for every product we install. Some users feel they must develop standards themselves and hope that vendors, now entrenched in standards bodies, use their power to drive standards to completion. But Jordan says even LDAP has since lost momentum and is missing key pieces such as mechanisms for access control. There is hope XML will build on LDAP and offer relief, but IT executives say the sheer volume of XML frameworks and schemas makes them nervous, and experts say the potential for fragmentation is high.