Global Index Catalog

A global index catalog can be used with a distribution deployment. If you are configuring a capacity based distribution, you must have a global index, with DN indexed. The global index catalog maps the entries to the distribution partition in which the data is held. When Oracle Unified Directory proxy receives a request from the client, the distribution looks up the attribute entry in the global index catalog, and forwards the client request to the correct partition. This diminishes the need for broadcasts. Moreover, if a modify DN request is made, the global index catalog will ensure that the entry is always found.

A global index catalog maps the entries based on specific attributes, such as employee number or telephone number. The value of the attribute to be indexed must be unique across all the entries. You cannot use a global index to map entries based on country, for example, as that information is not unique.

A global index catalog can include several global indexes. Each global index maps a different attribute. For example, you can have one global index catalog called GI-catalog, which includes a global index mapping the entries based on the telephone number and one mapping the entries based on the employee number. This means that you can forward client requests to the right partition using either the telephone number or the employee number.

Global index catalogs and global indexes are created and configured using the gicadm command. For more information see Configuring Global Indexes By Using the Command Line in Oracle Fusion Middleware Administration Guide for Oracle Unified Directory and gicadm in Oracle Fusion Middleware Command-Line Usage Guide for Oracle Unified Directory.

The global indexes can be populated with data from LDIF files. The data from one LDIF file can be split into partitions using the split-ldif command. For more information, see split-ldif in Oracle Fusion Middleware Command-Line Usage Guide for Oracle Unified Directory

A global index catalog should be replicated to avoid a single point of failure. For information on replicating the global index catalog, see Replication of Global Index Catalogs in Oracle Fusion Middleware Administration Guide for Oracle Unified Directory.

Example 5-4 Using a Global Index Catalog for Telephone Numbers

A typical example of a unique attribute which can be used to create a global index is a telephone number: the value of the attribute is unique, that is, only one person (employee, for example) can have that telephone number.

In the example below, the entries in the database have been split based on the telephone number. The global index includes the following information:

The global index does not store the name of the employees, location, and other attribute values that may be associated to the telephone number. It only maps the attribute indexed to the partition. The data associated to the indexed value (here telephone number) is stored in the remote LDAP server.

If an employee has multiple phone numbers, these are regarded as multi-valued entries. In this case, if the global index is created based on the telephone number, there will be two global index entries that will result in finding one employee, say Ben Brown.

In the example above, employee Ben Brown could have both telephone number 4011233 and 7054477 assigned to him. In this case, a search on one of Ben Brown's telephone number would return the correct partition, and all the information associated to the telephone number, including the name Ben Brown, regardless that he has two phone numbers attributed to him.