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 (e.g. city) and then by their name.
While many telephone service providers have for decades published a list of their subscribers in a telephone directory, and similarly corporations published a list of their employees in an internal directory, it was not until the rise of electronic mail systems that a requirement for standards for the electronic exchange of subscriber information between different systems appeared.
A white pages schema typically defines, for each real-world object being represented:
what attributes of that object are to be represented in the entry for that object
what relationships of that object to other objects are to be represented
how an entry is to be located by a client searching for it
how similar entries are to be distinguished
how are entries to be ordered when displayed in a list
One of the earliest attempts to standardize a white pages schema for electronic mail use was in X.520 and X.521, part of the X.500 specifications, that was derived from the addressing requirements of X.400 and defined a Directory Information Tree that mirrored the international telephone system, with entries representing residential and organizational subscribers. This evolved into the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol standard schema in RFC2256. One of the most widely deployed white pages schemas used in LDAP for representing individuals in an organizational context is inetOrgPerson, defined in RFC2798, although versions of Active Directory require a different object class, User. Many large organizations have also defined their own white pages schemas for their employees or customers, as part of their Identity management architecture. Converting between data bases and directories using different schemas is often the function of a Metadirectory, and data interchange standards such as Common Indexing Protocol.
Some early directory deployments suffered due to poor design choices in their white pages schema, such as:
attributes used for naming purposes were non-unique in large environments (such as a person's common name)
attributes used for naming purposes were likely to change (such as surnames)
users were required during provisioning to choose attributes which are unique but still memorable to them
Numerous other proposed schemas exist, both as standalone definitions suitable for use with general purpose directories, or as embedded into network protocols.
Examples of other generic white pages schemas include vCard, defined in RFC2426, and FOAF.
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.
Electronic mail is a method of transmitting and receiving messages using electronic devices. It was conceived in the late–20th century as the digital version of, or counterpart to, mail. Email is a ubiquitous and very widely used communication medium; in current use, an email address is often treated as a basic and necessary part of many processes in business, commerce, government, education, entertainment, and other spheres of daily life in most countries.
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.
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. The World Wide Web Consortium's XML 1.0 Specification of 1998 and several other related specifications—all of them free open standards—define XML.
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data connections between the client and the server. FTP users may authenticate themselves with a clear-text sign-in protocol, normally in the form of a username and password, but can connect anonymously if the server is configured to allow it. For secure transmission that protects the username and password, and encrypts the content, FTP is often secured with SSL/TLS (FTPS) or replaced with SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).
X.500 is a series of computer networking standards covering electronic directory services. The X.500 series was developed by the Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T). ITU-T was formerly known as the Consultative Committee for International Telephony and Telegraphy (CCITT). X.500 was first approved in 1988. The directory services were developed to support requirements of X.400 electronic mail exchange and name lookup. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) were partners in developing the standards, incorporating them into the Open Systems Interconnection suite of protocols. ISO/IEC 9594 is the corresponding ISO/IEC identification.
A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be composed of a number of other elements which, in turn, represent the color and size of the car and define its owner.
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.
X.400 is a suite of ITU-T recommendations that define the ITU-T Message Handling System (MHS).
Data modeling in software engineering is the process of creating a data model for an information system by applying certain formal techniques.
Identity management (IdM), also known as identity and access management, is a framework of policies and technologies to ensure that the right users have the appropriate access to technology resources. IdM systems fall under the overarching umbrellas of IT security and data management. Identity and access management systems not only identify, authenticate, and control access for individuals who will be utilizing IT resources but also the hardware and applications employees need to access.
STEP-file is a widely used data exchange form of STEP. ISO 10303 can represent 3D objects in computer-aided design (CAD) and related information. Due to its ASCII structure, a STEP-file is easy to read, with typically one instance per line. The format of a STEP-file is defined in ISO 10303-21 Clear Text Encoding of the Exchange Structure.
JSON is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays. It is a common data format with diverse uses in electronic data interchange, including that of web applications with servers.
The Common Indexing Protocol (CIP) was an attempt in the IETF working group FIND during the mid-1990s to define a protocol for exchanging index information between directory services.
The LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) is a standard plain text data interchange format for representing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory content and update requests. LDIF conveys directory content as a set of records, one record for each object. It also represents update requests, such as Add, Modify, Delete, and Rename, as a set of records, one record for each update request.
XML Enabled Directory (XED) is a framework for managing objects represented using the Extensible Markup Language (XML). XED builds on X.500 and LDAP directory services technologies.
Entity–attribute–value model (EAV) is a data model to encode, in a space-efficient manner, entities where the number of attributes that can be used to describe them is potentially vast, but the number that will actually apply to a given entity is relatively modest. Such entities correspond to the mathematical notion of a sparse matrix.
A directory information tree (DIT) is data represented in a hierarchical tree-like structure consisting of the Distinguished Names (DNs) of directory service entries.
System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) is a standard for automating the exchange of user identity information between identity domains, or IT systems.
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