A composite repository can handle item descriptor inheritance only for its primary item descriptors. For example, suppose you have a user composite item descriptor. Its primary item descriptor is named person and is part of an LDAP repository. The contributing item descriptor is named user and is part of an SQL repository. The user item descriptor has a subtype named broker. The composite items have access to the properties of the person item descriptor and the user item descriptor, but not to properties that exist only in the broker item descriptor.