Reasons to store users' data in LDAP instead of RDBMS

Question

It is often said that using LDAP is a good way to store data about users. That\'s beacause users\' \"directory\" is hierarchical and it changes rarely. But in my opinion tha

Answer 1

The "L" in LDAP stands for Lightweight. One goal of LDAP is to be relatively simple to use and implement. If all you need to do is store information about users, you don't need the full flexibility (and potential headache ) of accessing your data via SQL. A limited interface as presented by LDAP should be easier. This is important if you want LDAP to be implemented and supported by everyone, including your os vendor and all your application vendors.

PS: If you wanted to, you could always implement an LDAP server by storing all the info in an RDBMS, and providing an LDAP interface to it :)

PPS: LDAP is a protocol, like HTTP. An RDBMS is an application, usually thought of as one that implements SQL, among other things. So to compare apples to apples, you would be better off contrasting LDAP with SQL or HTTP.