Mapping and Transformations
LDAP application integration is often a daunting task which can be overcome using data mapping and transformation processes. Individual applications expect to see data in a certain way, and modifying these applications to support a different data format or schema is seldom easy. Symlabs' Virtual Directory Server provides a comprehensive and efficient data mapping and transformation engine that is ideally suited to address these issues in a non-invasive way which is transparent to the applications. Following are descriptions of the four main categories of data mapping and transformation facilities needed for application integration.
Solution
Attribute Translation
Applications often use different names for a data attribute. Imagine the following case: the email address of a user is stored in an attribute called "email". Other applications use an attribute called "rfc822mailbox" to read the same attribute. Some want to use the attribute name "mail", and perhaps some others even want to access it as "emailaddress".
Symlabs Virtual Directory Server's attribute mapping feature allows each application to use a different attribute name to access the same information. The attribute name is then translated in both directions in order to accommodate each application. This process is easy to set up, can be done on a per-application basis and is very efficient - supporting up to thousands of protocol requests per second.
Tree Mapping
Virtual Directory Server can easily re-map and rename directory trees. This feature is called "DIT Mapping" or "Tree Mapping" and is handled in a safe and very efficient manner. Tree Mapping is important for applications that expect the directory tree to be different than the storage directory. A classic example of this is the different naming convention between Active Directory and other directory servers.
Vendor Emulation
Sometimes applications are written and configured to support a specific vendor's directory. When the directory server is changed, problems can arise. Virtual Directory Server bridges the gap by emulating a specific vendor's directory server features, effectively causing the application to "believe" it is using the directory server it was initially designed for.
Application Specific Views
When supporting many directory-enabled applications, it is possible to set up multiple views - one for each application. Using these views, every application sees data in the format that it expects. Virtual Directory Server can support any mapping, so long as it is logically possible, through a simple script-driven configuration that is highly scalable.
Please take a look at some of the example solutions below to see how we can resolve various mapping and transformation issues.