What is the future of the Domino Directory Independence capability?

The intent of the Domino Directory Independence (DI) capability was to enable Notes and Domino to store person and group information exclusively in an LDAP Directory. This was a significant initiative undertaken by the Domino Development team, specifically, DI had the goal of easing the burden for administrators who deploy and manage multiple directories. We have made the business decision to leverage DI in IBM's hosted offerings, but there are no plans to provide this Directory Independence capability in Domino.

The Domino Directory Independence initiative was only one component of an ongoing, broader Identity Management strategy aimed at reducing overall cost of managing users and groups, as well as, simplifying Identity Management for end users. Many customers have asked for solutions to identity management problems such as password synchronization, single logon, and reducing the cost of managing Notes IDs instead of storing person information outside of the Domino Directory. In response to the demand for those solutions, recent releases of Lotus Notes and Domino introduced Identitiy Management capabilities such as the Notes ID Vault and Notes Shared Login. The value of these features has been validated through positive acceptance and acclaim by customers, business partners, and the press. As a result, Lotus Domino 8.5.1 expanded on the Identity Management strategy with the delivery of ID Vault support for Lotus iNotes, Lotus Traveler (and the ability to use for BES), and Windows Single Sign-on capability for Domino web applications.