3 ms·

In 2006 I helped put in an OpenLDAP server in a medium-sized company (150 users). Once we'd gotten past the initial hump of configuring everything to work with

by jewel 14y ago

In 2006 I helped put in an OpenLDAP server in a medium-sized company (150 users). Once we'd gotten past the initial hump of configuring everything to work with it, it was really nice to have single sign-on and a list of users and permissions accessible from any computer on the network. Since we could access the directory from perl it was easy to make a simple UI for the support team to make changes. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see Active Directory as being that big of an advantage over OpenLDAP. If your company is small, you'll do fine without any central directory. If it's large, the cost of implementing and supporting OpenLDAP should be less than the cost of the CALs for Active Directory.

ghshephard 14y ago
The OP is bang on - I started work at Netscape in 1996, went over to Oblix in 1999 (A pure play LDAP management company) and then spent the next 2-3 years in a startup (Loudcloud) in which we tried to run our entire infrastructure off of Netscape Directory Server (Still, one of the finest engineered products I ever worked with - only had issues when you ran out of disk space). Eventually, after I started managing IT, with all of the Windows Systems, and Exchange Servers, and Users - AD just infected us, and it's really hard to get out of your life. For a while, it was Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES), but being able to control whether people can login to their laptop/desktop/VPN/Email/etc... through AD is just so much easier when you have a lot of windows systems. Also - Group Polices, ACLs on things like Printers, File Systems, and other Resources - and now with Lync starting to pop up.... If you can live without Microsoft Exchange, and you don't have a lot of windows laptops, you can probably avoid it - but, AD really is the competitive weapon that Microsoft continues to be able to wield to keep themselves in the heart of a lot of IT environments. Would love to go run an environment/company that had a pure-play LDAP server like OpenLDAP, Netscape/Fedora/389 Directory server, or, OpenDS.
dagw 14y ago
For 150 users (which is a pretty small company in the grand scale of things) in one location and without too complicated authentication/authorization needs OpenLDAP is fine. Active Directory really comes into its own when you have lots of users, lots of locations, lots of admins (each responsible for a different area) and a more complex authentication/authorization structures (assuming you are running a fairly pure Microsoft stack).
raverbashing 14y ago
The problem is that the initial hurdle of configuring it, when considering the time spent, is expensive in face of AD licensing. LDAP goes out of the way to be complicated. Ad is nicely packaged, clicky, clicky, and "anyone" can manage it. That's where MS makes its money. People are expensive.

by jewel 14y ago

ghshephard 14y ago

The OP is bang on - I started work at Netscape in 1996, went over to Oblix in 1999 (A pure play LDAP management company) and then spent the next 2-3 years in a startup (Loudcloud) in which we tried to run our entire infrastructure off of Netscape Directory Server (Still, one of the finest engineered products I ever worked with - only had issues when you ran out of disk space). Eventually, after I started managing IT, with all of the Windows Systems, and Exchange Servers, and Users - AD just infected us, and it's really hard to get out of your life. For a while, it was Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES), but being able to control whether people can login to their laptop/desktop/VPN/Email/etc... through AD is just so much easier when you have a lot of windows systems. Also - Group Polices, ACLs on things like Printers, File Systems, and other Resources - and now with Lync starting to pop up.... If you can live without Microsoft Exchange, and you don't have a lot of windows laptops, you can probably avoid it - but, AD really is the competitive weapon that Microsoft continues to be able to wield to keep themselves in the heart of a lot of IT environments. Would love to go run an environment/company that had a pure-play LDAP server like OpenLDAP, Netscape/Fedora/389 Directory server, or, OpenDS.

dagw 14y ago

For 150 users (which is a pretty small company in the grand scale of things) in one location and without too complicated authentication/authorization needs OpenLDAP is fine. Active Directory really comes into its own when you have lots of users, lots of locations, lots of admins (each responsible for a different area) and a more complex authentication/authorization structures (assuming you are running a fairly pure Microsoft stack).

raverbashing 14y ago

The problem is that the initial hurdle of configuring it, when considering the time spent, is expensive in face of AD licensing. LDAP goes out of the way to be complicated. Ad is nicely packaged, clicky, clicky, and "anyone" can manage it. That's where MS makes its money. People are expensive.