DB2 Version 9.7 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory service

A directory service is a repository of resource information about multiple systems and services within a distributed environment; and it provides client and server access to these resources.

Clients and servers would use the directory service to find out how to access other resources. Information about these other resources in the distributed environment must be entered into the directory service repository.

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an industry standard access method to directory services. Each database server instance will publish its existence to an LDAP server and provide database information to the LDAP directory when the databases are created. When a client connects to a database, the catalog information for the server can be retrieved from the LDAP directory. Each client is no longer required to store catalog information locally on each computer. Client applications search the LDAP directory for information required to connect to the database.

Note: Publishing of the database server instance to the LDAP server is not an automatic process, but must be done manually by the administrator.

As an administrator of a DB2® system, you can establish and maintain a directory service. The Configuration Assistant can assist in the maintenance of this directory service. The directory service is made available to the DB2 database manager through Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory services. To use LDAP directory services, there must first exist an LDAP server that is supported by the DB2 database manager so that directory information can be stored there.

Note: When running in a Windows domain environment, an LDAP server is already available because it is integrated with the Windows Active Directory. As a result, every computer running Windows can use LDAP.

An LDAP directory is helpful in an enterprise environment where it is difficult to update local directory catalogs on each client computer because of the large number of clients. In this situation, you should consider storing your directory entries in an LDAP server so that maintaining catalog entries is done in one place: on the LDAP server.