Removal of J2EE Agent Dependency on LDAP

Unlike previous releases, J2EE agents in the Policy Agent 2.2 release do not use a direct LDAP connection. Instead, J2EE agents obtain support for their entire functionality by communicating with Access Manager solely with XML over HTTP.

Benefit - Removal of Dependency on LDAP: The benefit of not having an LDAP dependency includes greater flexibility and scalability of deployments. Since J2EE agents no longer depend on LDAP connections, they do not require the opening of LDAP communication ports in firewalls, which was a requirement with certain deployment scenarios in prior J2EE agent releases. With the LDAP dependency removed, the 2.2 release of J2EE agents requires fewer configuration changes during installation in protected regions, such as in a demilitarized zone (DMZ), giving more deployment flexibility and easing administrative overhead. Removal of the LDAP dependency also ensures that LDAP server resources are focused to support Access Manager instances. A focus on Access Manager instances facilitates the sizing process by eliminating considerations about the load that an agent would require. This makes the deployment easily scalable and more flexible and provides the optimal utilization of deployed resources.