Determining Data Ownership - Netscape DIRECTORY SERVER 6.0 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual

Performing a Site Survey
Mastering data in non-directory applications makes the most sense if you can
identify one or two applications that you already use to master your data, and
you want to use your directory only for lookups (for example, for online
corporate telephone books).
How you maintain master copies of your data depends on your specific needs.
However, regardless of the 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.
For example, suppose you want to manage an employee's home telephone
number. Both the LDAP directory and a human resources database store this
information.The human resources application is LDAP enabled, so you can write
an automatic application that transfers data from the LDAP directory to the human
resources database, and vice versa. However, if you attempt to master changes to
that employee's telephone number in both the LDAP directory and the human
resources data, then the last place where the telephone number was changed
overwrites the information in the other database. This is acceptable as long as the
last application to write the data had the correct information. But if that
information was old or out of date (perhaps because, for example, the human
resources data was reloaded from a backup), then the correct telephone number in
the LDAP directory will be deleted.

Determining Data Ownership

Data ownership refers to the person or organization responsible for making sure the
data is up-to-date. During the data design, decide who can write data to the
directory. Some common strategies for deciding data ownership follow:
• Allow read-only access to the directory for everyone except a small group of
directory content managers.
• Allow individual users to manage some strategic subset of information for
themselves.
This subset of information might include their passwords, descriptive
information about themselves and their role within the organization, their
automobile license plate number, and contact information such as telephone
numbers or office numbers.
• Allow a person's manager to write to some strategic subset of that person's
information, such as contact information or job title.
34 Netscape Directory Server Deployment Guide • December 2001