Microsoft's forthcoming Active Directory-often are described as metadirectories because they link to others, but industry analysts say they don't really fit the definition. Zoomit Corp. These products, however, are far from mature and many are just coming to market. The Burton Group says a metadirectory employs a join, which ties together dissimilar schema and attributes from different repositories into a virtual common view. The ideal metadirectory lets an administrator make a change in one directory and have that updated throughout all system and application directories. However, these products are far from mature and many are just coming to market.
Enterprises moving forward with metadirectory projects are clearly on the bleeding edge.
Forward-looking network administrators are still selling the concept to upper management. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is one of those already sold on the need for a metadirectory, and it's pretty far along with its efforts. Via Server 2.0. Last fall, JPL hired a full-time consultant to evaluate the systems and begin implementation. Like Time Warner and other large organizations, JPL has an X.500 directory that's used for message directory integration and for single sign-on using a Distributed Computing Environment application, although updates still require manual intervention.