The best introductory discussion of the uses and limitations of LDAP I found was by Tim Howes , one of the authors of the original LDAP implementation at the University of Michigan. Rather, LDAP's strength lies in ease of secure access . LDAP arose as a simplified way to access X.500 services. ISO X.500 is a long-standing standard for a directory access system. Besides specifying a data model, X.500 has complex mechanisms for sharing data among directory servers and forwarding requests that can't be handled locally.
Names are thus hierarchical.
Howe identifies eight basic components of LDAP . The LDAP schema , the collections of attributes making up the records to be stored on a server. The security model , including the ability to have both client and server mutually prove their identities. The data interchange format , a simple text format for representing data entries. Howes continues with a discussion of the limitations of the current LDAP standard and the directions for the next revision , version 3.