Active Directory is the most widely used directory service in use today. Active Directory is a core component of the Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 operating systems. Active Directory serves as the foundation for not only Microsoft’s Identity and Access solutions, but also for application servers such as SharePoint. Active Directory has proven to be the world’s fastest and most scalable directory server in existence today. Many customers utilize Active Directory as their user repository and have easily scaled the solution to multi-million user repositories. Testing by independent sources has shown that Active Directory scales linearly to meet the increased demands of a customer. Likewise, the Virtual Identity Server (VIS) was written from the ground up to tightly integrate with and leverage the existing investment that was made in Active Directory and the Microsoft infrastructure. VIS was written entirely in Microsoft .NET managed code and seamlessly integrates and extends the functionality of Active Directory, providing the necessary virtual directory/proxy and LDAP firewall needs for corporations. As a key differentiator of other virtual directory products, VIS does not contain a built-in LDAP server and instead leverages the powerful and scalable Active Directory or ADAM/AD LDS LDAP directories as its data repository. This insures that at the core, companies are relying on the fastest, most scalable and widely used LDAP directory in the world as the backbone for the virtual directory deployment. The Virtual Identity Server is the only virtual directory product that is certified on both Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.
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Active Directory Application Mode is a standalone LDAP directory based on Microsoft's Active Directory. The key difference between AD and ADAM is that the ADAM server has all of the network operating system code removed. In essesnce, it is the core LDAP features of Active Directory and can be considered a lightweight version of Active Directory. (see AD LDS below). Many organizations utilize ADAM as a standalone application directory. ADAM was formerly a standalone download and then later included as a core component of Windows 2003 R2 Server and can be installed using add/remove programs/Windows components.
Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) is the next generation of ADAM. AD LDS is a core component of Windows Server 2008 and can be installed by adding the AD LDS Role to a Windows Server.
Novell eDirectory (formerly called NetWare Directory Services - NDS) is an LDAP directory server that is a part of the operating system developed by Novell. The eDirectory adapter allows organizations that are migrating from eDirectory to Active Directory with a rapid means of accessing users, groups and data as they perform the often time consuming process of migration.
Sun One Directory Server is the directory server sold by Sun Microsystems that was originally developed by Netscape. Under a joint partnership both Sun and AOL (which purchased Netscape) retained rights to the software.
Oracle Internet Directory is the directory server sold by Oracle.
OpenLDAP is a free, open source implementation of an LDAP Server. It was developed by the OpenLDAP Project.
The Generic LDAP V3 server adapter can be used for any V3 LDAP server not specifically listed as an adapter.
Directory Service Markup Language (DSML) is a standards-based XML representation of directory access operations that are transmitted via Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Many applications support DSML as a means for providing data access over the Internet.
The Microsoft SQL Server adapter provides the ability for LDAP applications to query and update data in a SQL database via LDAP calls. The Virtual Identity Server translates the LDAP queries into SQL queries and likewise LDAP updates into SQL Updates. Additionally, objects (i.e. users) existing in an LDAP directory such as Active Directory can be joined in real-time to objects in SQL. This allows LDAP applications to leverage data existing in SQL directly.
The Oracle database adapter provides the ability for LDAP applications to query and update data in an Oracle database via LDAP calls. The Virtual Identity Server translates the LDAP queries into SQL queries and likewise LDAP updates into SQL Updates. Additionally, objects (i.e. users) existing in an LDAP directory such as Active Directory can be joined in real-time to objects in Oracle. This allows LDAP applications to leverage data existing in Oracle directly.
The Google Cloud adapter provides the ability for organizations to manage their users in the Google Cloud (Google Apps) as well as leverage that data in realtime LDAP applications.