What is LDAP used for?

Question

I know that LDAP is used to provide some information and to help facilitate authorization.

But what are the other usages of LDAP?

Answer 1

That's a rather large question.

LDAP is a protocol for accessing a directory. A directory contains objects; generally those related to users, groups, computers, printers and so on; company structure information (although frankly you can extend it and store anything in there).

LDAP gives you query methods to add, update and remove objects within a directory (and a bunch more, but those are the central ones).

What LDAP does not do is provide a database; a database provides LDAP access to itself, not the other way around. It is much more than signup.