Preface

The Sun ONE Meta-Directory Deployment Guide offers an introduction to Meta-Directory and describes how to plan and implement an Sun ONE Meta-Directory system.

What You Are Expected to Know

This book is considered the “first” book in the documentation series provided with Sun ONE Meta-Directory. While it’s not essential that you understand directory technologies, you will get the most out of this guide if you are familiar with directory servers, databases, and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). Particularly, you should be familiar with planet Directory Server and the documentation provided with that product.

This guide is intended for use by IT professionals who want to join different directory repositories into one unified view. The functionality contained in Sun ONE Meta-Directory allows you to join the different directory information your organization maintains, thus making it easier to view and maintain the information you have spread across different directory and database applications.

Once you understand the concepts described in this guide, you will be ready to install, configure, and administer an Sun ONE Meta-Directory system, as described in the Sun ONE Meta-Directory Installation Guide and the Sun ONE Meta-Directory Administration Guide.

The Sun ONE Meta-Directory Documentation Set

Sun ONE Meta-Directory Deployment Guide (this guide) describes Sun ONE Meta-Directory and details how to plan and implement a Meta-Directory system.

Sun ONE Meta-Directory Installation Guide gives instructions on how to install the Sun ONE Meta-Directory software on both Solaris and Windows NT systems.

Sun ONE Product Brief documents key concepts of the Sun ONE Meta-Directory.

Sun ONE Meta-Directory Administration Guide documents how to configure and administer an Sun ONE Meta-Directory system once it has been installed. Configuring and administering Meta-Directory from both the Meta-Directory console and the command line are addressed.

The Release Notes file gathers an assortment of information, including a description of what is new in this release, last minute installation notes, known problems and limitations, and how to report problems.



Note	Be sure to check the Meta-Directory documentation web site for updates to the release notes and for revisions of guides. Updated documents will be marked with the revision date. http://docs.sun.com/prod/S1_MetaDir_511

Organization of This Guide

Table 1 Layout of This Manual
Chapter Title	Chapter Description
“Preface”	The chapter you are reading, it gives an outline of this guide and describes the Sun ONE Meta-Directory documentation set. It also provides sources for additional information related to Sun ONE Meta-Directory.
Chapter 1, "Meta-Directory Concepts"	This chapter provides a high-level overview that describes the need for Sun ONE Meta-Directory, the components provided with the software package, and the features provided by the components.
Chapter 2, "Planning the Meta-Directory System"	This chapter describes planning your Meta-Directory system. The three phases of planning are described: designing, deploying, and maintaining the system. This includes planning the topology of servers, the structuring of data, server load balancing, and so on.
Chapter 3, "Directory Server Configuration Settings for Meta-Directory"	This chapter discusses configuring the Sun ONE Meta-Directory system (as opposed to configuring the component instances which you instantiate, which is discussed in the Sun ONE Meta-Directory Administration Guide). Included in this chapter are the steps that need to be taken to configure Sun ONE Directory Server so that it can correctly support Meta-Directory, the schemas that need to be installed, enabling the Directory Server change log, and so on.
Chapter 4, "Meta-Directory Performance Tuning"	This chapter discusses some of the approaches you can take to increase the performance of Directory Server with regards to how it interacts with Sun ONE Meta-Directory.
Chapter 5, "Tuning Directory Server"	This chapter provides a guide to the important Sun ONE Directory Server settings a that can effect the performance of Sun ONE Meta-Directory.

Documentation Conventions

In the Sun ONE Meta-Directory documentation (such as this guide) there are certain typographic and terminology conventions used to simplify discussion and to help you better understand the material. These conventions are described below.

Typographic Conventions

Italic type is used within text for book titles, new terminology, emphasis, and words used in the literal sense.

Monospace font is used for sample code and code listings, API and language elements (such as function names and class names), filenames, pathnames, directory names, HTML tags, and any text that must be typed on the screen.

Italic serif font is used within code and code fragments to indicate variable placeholders. For example, the following command uses filename as a variable placeholder for an argument to the gunzip command:

gunzip -d filename .tar.gz

Terminology

Below is a list of the general terms that are used in the Sun ONE Meta-Directory documentation set:

Meta-Directory refers to Sun ONE Meta-Directory and any installed instances of the Sun ONE Meta-Directory software.

Meta-Directory components refers to the collective set of Sun ONE Meta-Directory components and software you have installed and running on your system, including the join engine and any connectors.

External data source refers to any user data that originates outside of the core Meta-Directory components, whether the data is coming from another database, directory server, data file, or other source of data.

Directory Server refers to an installed instance of Sun ONE Directory Server, iPlanet Directory Server, or Netscape Directory Server.

The term Directory Server refers to the instances of Sun ONE Directory Server, iPlanet Directory Server, and Netscape Directory Server that you have installed to work with Sun ONE Meta-Directory.

Similarly the term Administration Server refers to an installed instance of Sun ONE Administration Server, whether it be used with the Meta-Directory components or another Sun ONE server.

NETSITE_ROOT is a variable placeholder for the home directory where you have installed Sun ONE Meta-Directory and any other Sun ONE servers installed into the same server group.

The term flow is used rather loosely to refer to the process of synchronizing data between an external data source and the Meta View. You “flow” data through a connector to the Connector View and then “flow” it to the Meta View. The contrary is also true; you “flow” data from the Meta View back to the Connector Views and out to the external data sources.

Related Third-Party Web Site References



Note	Sun is not responsible for the availability of third-party Web sites mentioned in this document. Sun does not endorse and is not responsible or liable for any content, advertising, products, or other materials that are available on or through such sites or resources. Sun will not be responsible or liable for any actual or alleged damage or loss caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any such content, goods, or services that are available on or through such sites or resources.

Where to Find Additional Information

In addition to Sun ONE Meta-Directory documentation set, you should be familiar with the documentation for products that are used in conjunction with it. Of particular interest are the Sun ONE Console and Sun ONE Directory Server documentation sets. This section lists additional sources of information you may find helpful as you use Sun ONE Meta-Directory.

Sun ONE Console Documentation

Sun ONE Directory Server Documentation

Directory Server Developer Information

In addition to the Directory Server documentation, you can find information on Meta-Directory, LDAP, the Sun ONE Directory Server, and associated technologies at the following Sun ONE developer sites: