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 3-1
3.
Overview
3.1
General
“If you want to understand your government, … read selected portions of the
Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with
titles beginning with the word `National'” —George Will
“Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we
can find information upon it.” —Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
“If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.”
—Unknown, Sears, Roebuck, and Co. Consumer's Guide, 1897
Purpose. The Emory-wide directory service would provide a means to look up official
information about Emory-related 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.
Benefits. Having a service through which the data can be looked up has benefits such as the
following:
·
Storing identifiers from multiple campus systems with the people, places or things they
identify enhances the ability to look them up and link together information about them.
·
Providing infrastructure systems and other authorized systems with shared access to data
eliminates the management cost and complexity of maintaining a copy of the information
separately on each of those systems.
·
Looking up data in the directory provides the following features without having to incur the
cost of implementing them on each of the systems that would otherwise have to be
accessed to find that data:
o
Continuous availability and Internet access to make information available for look up
from anywhere on the Emory network or on the Internet at any time.
o
Very fast reads that are orders of magnitude higher performance than a typical database
to provide real-time access to data in support of the operation of a wide variety of
applications for a wide variety of purposes.
o
Extensibility to store any type of data, and easily change the entries, directory
organization and access control while the service is running.
o
Ease of being widely distributed and replicated in multiple places.
o
Interoperation with other universities to support sharing of resources.
Directory Data. 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 in the directory service include:
·
Official names and identifiers for Emory people, places, and things. Examples of things are
Emory departments, divisions, schools, organizations, classes, job titles, and security roles.
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