An IT Architecture for Emory University
Adopted by CIRT
Directory Service Domain Architecture
February 20, 2002
ITA Version 2.4.6
© 2000 Emory University
Page 1-1
1.
Executive Summary
An Emory-wide directory service would provide a means to look up official information about
Emory people, places and things that are of Emory-wide applicability and that Emory thinks
authorized people or IT systems should be able to obtain at any time from anywhere on the
Emory network or the Internet.
Although such information is typically available in other systems at Emory, determining which
system it is in and obtaining access can be difficult. Even when access is made available, the
software and method for getting to it from a desktop computer can vary with the information
source. Also access might be limited to certain times or locations. Looking up the data through a
single service could leverage economies of scale to provide the benefits of special features
such as shared, continuous availability, Internet access to data, and very fast response without
having to incur the cost of implementing these features on each of the systems that would
otherwise have to be accessed to find the information.
Just as the Emory Campus Directory has sub-directories for units, faculty & staff, and students,
and the public phone directory has white pages and yellow pages, the directory service would
be able to provide access to information on multiple topics. Examples of the type of information
that might be available via the directory service include:
·
Official names and identifiers for Emory people, places, and things. Examples of things
include Emory departments, schools, divisions, organizations, and courses.
·
Information about Emory people (such as their status, email, phone numbers, web link to
their CV, Emory-wide authentication information, student id, employee id, and other
identifiers).
·
Entries documenting the existence of sets of research data, the type of data, and a web link
to a description of the data and who owns it.
·
Information for cooperation with other universities such as to support sharing of resources.
To ensure that the directory service is used appropriately yet allow it to easily grow in size and
add information about additional things, the directory’s contents will need to be carefully
managed. An Emory governance body that is inclusive and representative of the perspectives of
all components of Emory will be needed to decide what can be included in the directory and
fend off attempts by individuals and systems to use it for file storage or to store data of only
local interest. For data that is allowed, personnel will be needed to identify a source that is an
“authority” for that data in the sense that the source provides correct, valid answers. The
preferred authority would be an existing source that already integrates and consolidates data
from multiple authoritative sources, since that would reduce the number of sources and thus the
complexity of obtaining the data. In the case of individually maintained information, the
individual would be the source and provide the updates. Regardless of the source, each entry in
the directory must have a process to get timely updates.
Although Emory already has the beginning of an Emory-wide directory service, the current
system is limited in scope, capacity and availability. The directory service architecture in this
document defines an infrastructure to move to a higher level of service by building an Emory-
wide directory service that can grow and change quickly enough to meet Emory’s needs while
keeping down complexity and support costs. The document proposes that the service be based
on a general purpose, standards-based directory, rather than other types of directories such as
a Network Operating System-based directory or an application-specific directory. It also
specifies technologies, standards, and products to achieve the needed capacity, availability, and
accessibility and reduction in complexity and support costs. Finally, it lists a number of points for
consideration and suggests some next steps.
 |
 |
 |