Considering A Data Master; Interaction With A Replicated Environment - Red Hat DIRECTORY SERVER 7.1 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual

Designing Windows Sync
Password Sync must be installed on both Active Directory and NT4 Server in order
to transfer any password changes made on the Windows server. The LDAP Service
must be installed on a Windows NT4 Server for entries to be added and modified
over LDAP. (The native language for NT4 Server is NTLM.)
Both the Password Sync and the NT4 LDAP Services must be installed on a
primary domain controller (PDC) if those services are necessary on an NT4 Server.
Undefined sync behavior will occur of these are not installed on a PDC.

Considering a Data Master

The data master is the server that is the master source of data. Consider which
server will be the data master when your data resides in two different directory
services and decide what amount of that information will be shared. The best
course is to choose a single directory service to master the data and allow the
synchronization process to add, update, or delete the entries on the other service.
How you maintain master copies of your data depends on your specific needs.
However, regardless of how you maintain data masters, keep it simple and
consistent. For example, you should not attempt to master data in multiple sites,
then automatically exchange data between competing applications. Doing so leads
to a "last change wins" scenario and increases your administrative overhead.

Interaction with a Replicated Environment

Synchronization links a Directory Server suffix and subtree (e.g.,
) to a corresponding Windows domain and
ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
subtree ( ). Each subtree can be synchronized only to
cn=Users,dc=test,dc=com
one other subtree to avoid naming conflicts and change conflicts.
To take advantage of Windows Sync, use it with a Directory Server supplier in
multi-master replication synched to a member of a Windows domain (a PDC for
NT4 synchronization). This will propagate changes through both directory systems
while keeping the information centralized and easy to maintain. It also makes it
easier to master the data. Figure 7-3 shows this arrangement:
Chapter 7 Designing Synchronization 147