Concepts

Within the Java Desktop System Configuration Manager framework, configuration data are associated with entities, which are entries in the LDAP repository and correspond to elements of the organizational structure of the company.

The recognized entities are:

• Organization: typically represents either an organizational (divisions, group, teams) or geographical (continent, country, site) unit of the overall hierarchy.

• User: represents a leaf node of the overall hierarchy and, as the name implies, usually a user.

• Domain: represents a logical structuring unit for the network organization.

• Host: also represents a leaf node of the overall hierarchy but points to a machine on the network.

• Role: represents properties, usually a distinction in terms of function (administrator, site management), applied to a set of users.

The organization and user entities are used to define a user tree, while the domain and host entities define a host tree. These two trees are independent but are manipulated in a similar way in the framework.

The relationship of organization and domain entities with other entries is defined by the physical location of the entries within the repository. That is, the organization and domain entities can include any entry that is located below these two entities in the tree. The relationship of roles to users or hosts is defined by the attributes of the user and host entries.

The configuration data that are associated with an entity are stored in special entries that are managed by the framework. These entries are identified by the service name and the service container that are associated with the entries.