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Tips for Designing Smart Referrals
While simple to implement, consider the following points before using smart
referrals:
•
Keep the design simple.
Deploying your directory using a complex web of referrals makes
administration difficult. Also, overusing smart referrals can lead to circular
referral patterns. For example, a referral points to an LDAP URL, this LDAP
URL in turn points to another LDAP URL, and so on until a referral
somewhere in the chain points back to the original server. The following
diagram depicts a circular referral pattern:
•
Redirect at major branch points.
Limit your referral usage to handle redirection at the suffix level of your
directory tree. Smart referrals allow you to redirect lookup requests for leaf
(non-branch) entries to different servers and DNs. As a result, you may be
tempted to use smart referrals as an aliasing mechanism, leading to a complex
and difficult to secure directory structure. By limiting referrals to the suffix or
major branch points of your directory tree, you can limit the number of
referrals that you have to manage, subsequently reducing your directory's
administrative overhead.
About Knowledge References
Chapter 5
Designing the Directory Topology
87
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