As the architect and primary implementor of the LDAP at University of Michigan, Howes knows what it takes to build a real-world directory service. The University of Michigan system services more than 5 million queries per week on more than 100,000 university listings. Under Howes' guidance, LDAP will find its way into a slew of Netscape products, including the Directory Server, Enterprise Server, News Server, Mail Server and Navigator, giving administrators a single place from which to manage users and giving users a single place to store user-preference information. The industry's recent embrace of LDAP makes it the choice directory-access protocol, helping to locate resources and people on the vast Internet, as well as combining the disparate directories used in corporate networks. More than 40 companies have signed on with Netscape to support LDAP, promising a more easily navigable Internet and intranets.
H owes performs a careful balancing act.
With LDAP, as with other standards before it, if this balancing act is not performed with the utmost grace, the tradition of the IETF could come to a head-on collision with the crush of commercial interest. He cites HTTP's and HTML's nonstandard status as an example. It's a difficult balancing act. With the ability to determine the best path for routing data packets, routers are a fundamental component for any enterprisewide network. Network Computing's editors challenged vendors to devise fault-tolerant storage solutions, and you're invited to watch them face off and present their answers.