Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralized domain management. However, Active Directory eventually became an umbrella title for a broad range of directory-based identity-related services.
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory services play an important role in developing intranet and Internet applications by allowing the sharing of information about users, systems, networks, services, and applications throughout the network. As examples, directory services may provide any organized set of records, often with a hierarchical structure, such as a corporate email directory. Similarly, a telephone directory is a list of subscribers with an address and a phone number.
Mac OS X Server is a discontinued series of Unix-like server operating systems developed by Apple Inc. based on macOS. It provided server functionality and system administration tools, and tools to manage both macOS-based computers and iOS-based devices, network services such as a mail transfer agent, AFP and SMB servers, an LDAP server, and a domain name server, as well as server applications including a Web server, database, and calendar server.
In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network resources, which can include volumes, folders, files, printers, users, groups, devices, telephone numbers and other objects. A directory service is a critical component of a network operating system. A directory server or name server is a server which provides such a service. Each resource on the network is considered an object by the directory server. Information about a particular resource is stored as a collection of attributes associated with that resource or object.
Oracle Internet Directory (OID) is a directory service produced by Oracle Corporation, which functions compatible with LDAP version 3.
Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication scheme that allows a user to log in with a single ID to any of several related, yet independent, software systems.
In computing, the term virtual directory has a couple of meanings. It may simply designate a folder which appears in a path but which is not actually a subfolder of the preceding folder in the path. However, this article will discuss the term in the context of directory services and identity management.
A white pages schema is a data model, specifically a logical schema, for organizing the data contained in entries in a directory service, database, or application, such as an address book. In a white pages directory, each entry typically represents an individual person that makes use of network resources, such as by receiving email or having an account to log into a system. In some environments, the schema may also include the representation of organizational divisions, roles, groups, and devices. The term is derived from the white pages, the listing of individuals in a telephone directory, typically sorted by the individual's home location and then by their name.
Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software (EAS), is computer software used to satisfy the needs of an organization rather than individual users. Such organizations include businesses, schools, interest-based user groups, clubs, charities, and governments. Enterprise software is an integral part of a (computer-based) information system; a collection of such software is called an enterprise system. These systems handle a number of operations in an organization to enhance the business and management reporting tasks. The systems must process the information at a relatively high speed and can be deployed across a variety of networks.
IBM Security Directory Server, formerly known as IBM Directory Server and IBM Tivoli Directory Server, is an IBM implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) is an identity management (IdM) product offered by Microsoft. It is a service that aggregates identity-related information from multiple data-sources. The goal of MIIS is to provide organizations with a unified view of a user's/resources identity across the heterogeneous enterprise and provide methods to automate routine tasks.
In computing, delegated administration or delegation of control describes the decentralization of role-based-access-control systems. Many enterprises use a centralized model of access control. For large organizations, this model scales poorly and IT teams become burdened with menial role-change requests. These requests — often used when hire, fire, and role-change events occur in an organization — can incur high latency times or suffer from weak security practices.
Oracle Secure Global Desktop (SGD) software provides secure access to both published applications and published desktops running on Microsoft Windows, Unix, mainframe and IBM i systems via a variety of clients ranging from fat PCs to thin clients such as Sun Rays.
A roaming user profile is a file synchronization concept in the Windows NT family of operating systems that allows users with a computer joined to a Windows domain to log on to any computer on the same domain and access their documents and have a consistent desktop experience, such as applications remembering toolbar positions and preferences, or the desktop appearance staying the same, while keeping all related files stored locally, to not continuously depend on a fast and reliable network connection to a file server.
A Watermark for data synchronization describes an object of a predefined format which provides a point of reference value for two systems/datasets attempting to establish delta/incremental synchronization; any object in the queried data source which was created, modified, or deleted after the watermark's value will be qualified as "above watermark" and should be returned to the client requesting data.
Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) is a state-based identity management software product, designed to manage users' digital identities, credentials and groupings throughout the lifecycle of their membership of an enterprise computer system. FIM integrates with Active Directory and Exchange Server to provide identity synchronization, certificate management, user password resets and user provisioning from a single interface.
GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from Micro Focus that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, which is available for Windows,, and the server software, which is supported on Windows Server and Linux.
ownCloud is an open-source software product for sharing and syncing of files in distributed and federated enterprise scenarios. It allows companies and remote end-users to organize their documents on servers, computers and mobile devices and work with them collaboratively, while keeping a centrally organized and synchronized state. ownCloud supports extensions like online document editing, calendar and contact synchronization. Users can work with documents from a browser, and there are clients for a variety of operating systems as well as mobile clients for Android and iPhone.
Pleasant Password Server is a proprietary, multi-user enterprise password server that is fully compatible with a modified version of the KeePass Password Safe. Designed for business users, the password server provides access provisioning as well as per-group and per-entry access restrictions. Pleasant Password Server supports the use of secure passwords, allowing system administrators to manage user passwords from a central web interface.
