Patent ID: 8041689

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a request through a network connection to create a new entry in a database, wherein the request includes a distinguished name (“DN”) associated with the new entry to be created and at least one attribute to be stored in the new entry; creating the new entry based on the at least one attribute from the request; locating a template entry in the database associated with the new entry request, the template entry including a policy attribute and at least one static attribute, the policy attribute specifying whether a server is to at least one of: augment the new entry with the static attribute and override data that is supplied by a client in the new entry with the static attribute; examining the policy attribute in the template entry to determine whether the server is to at least one of: augment the new entry and override the data in the new entry; adding the static attribute to the new entry based on the policy attribute specifying that the server is to augment the new entry and replacing the data that is supplied by the client in the new entry with the static attribute from the template entry based on the policy attribute specifying that the server is to override the data in the new entry, wherein adding the static attribute to the new entry and replacing the data in the new entry form a plurality of attributes for the new entry; and associating the plurality of attributes with the DN in the database in order to finalize creation of the new entry.