FNS and X.500

X.500 is a global directory service. Its components cooperate to manage information about objects in a worldwide scope. Such objects include countries, organizations, people, and machines. FNS federates X.500 to enable global access to enterprise name services. You can choose to use one of two APIs to access the X.500 global directory service:

• XDS/XOM API

• LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) API.

See "Federating Under X.500/LDAP" for information on federating X.500.