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Depending on an organization's needs - a virtual directory can complement or replace a Metadirectory .

Most virtual directories act as proxies. The virtual directory sits between an application and a set of authoritative sources to create a view of a user, generally through the LDAP protocol. Virtual directories may create a user view by joining a user's identity data or by integrating directory information. Typically a virtual directory will integrate with other LDAP directories, relational databases and network operating system directories.

Potential advantages of virtual directories:
  • Faster deployment by avoiding synchronization

  • Leverage existing investments in security and high-availability for authoritative data stores

  • Provide application specific views of identity data which can help avoid the need to develop a master enterprise schema

  • Allow a single view of identity data without violating internal or external regulations governing identity data

  • Act as identity firewalls - preventing denial of service attacks on the primary data-stores and providing further security on access to sensitive data

  • Changes made in authoritative sources are reflected in real-time


Organizations that implement virtual directories need to be aware of the following potential deployment challenges:
  • How can the virtual directory implementation augment the high availability of authoritative sources

  • What is the latency and performance requirements client applications need to meet in order to function to meet business requirements


Some Typical Virtual Directory Terminology:
  • Namespace Joining - The creation of a single large directory by bringing multiple directories together at the namespace level. For instance if one directory has the namespace "ou=internal,dc=domain,dc=com" and a second directory has the namespace "ou=external,dc=domain,dc=com" then creating a virtual directory with both namespaces is an example of namespace joining.

  • Identity Joining - The creation of a user from various authoritative sources linked together by common data. For instance if the user joeuser exists in a directory as "cn=joeuser,ou=users" and in a database with a username of "joeuser" then the "joeuser" identity can be constructed from both the directory and the database.

  • Mapping - The transformation of data inside of the virtual directory. For instance mapping uid to samaccountname.

  • Identity Routing - Virtual directories may support the routing of requests based on certain criteria (such as write operations going to a master while read operations being forwarded to replicas).

  • Authoritative Source - A "virtualized" data repository, such as a directory or database, that the virtual directory can trust for user data.