Data Joining Solutions

Challenge


As Identity Data becomes increasingly fragmented and is spread across repositories, it becomes more and more difficult to access a single view of an identity that provides a completely consolidated account of all user attributes. While it is possible to unify branches from various different repositories within a single view, or virtual tree, each branch may still contain data that comprises a single identity. Extracting attributes from an entry within one branch and joining them to the attributes for an entry in a completely separate branch, or even repository, seems to be an insurmountable but entirely worthwhile challenge.

Solution


The Join Entries plugin that is bundled with Symlabs' LDAP Proxy and Symlabs' Virtual Directory Server requires minimal configuration to extract the attributes from an entry within a branch of an LDAP tree in one repository and join them to the attributes presented for an entry in an entirely different branch, even if this branch is located in a separate repository.

By specifying 'join attributes' you can use common identifiers within separate repositories to perform SQL-style joins, incorporating data from as many sources as you require and presenting it all as if it was a single record entry. For conflicting attributes, you can configure which attributes might be aggregated as well as a general "order of preference" to help specify how authoritative a data source should be considered.

Th Join Entries plugin can be configured to handle both Read and Write operations separately, allowing you to control for which operations the complex transformation and routing operations take place.

For each foreign data group being included in the join, it is possible to specify different Read and Write operations, including controlling which attributes are included. Furthermore, it is possible to include static values for specified attributes, which may prove useful to show which other data sources contain data about an identity when a joined result is returned.

This powerful bundled plugin automatically resolves a number of common problems related to data fragmentation and distribution and performs data transformation on-the-fly so that you don't need to concern yourself with data replication or synchronization.

Symlabs is now part of Quest Software. A leader in simplifying and reducing the cost of IT management, Quest’s innovative solutions make solving the toughest IT management problems easier, enabling more than 100,000 customers worldwide to save time and money across physical, virtual and cloud environments. The addition of Symlabs virtual directory and federation technology will enhance the overall architecture of the Quest® One Identity Solution and Quest migration products. Learn more at www.quest.com/symlabs.