About Suffixes - Netscape DIRECTORY SERVER 7.0 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual

Distributing Your Data
Distributing databases across multiple servers reduces the amount of work each
server needs to do. Thus, the directory can be made to scale to a much larger
number of entries than would be possible with a single server.
In addition, Directory Server supports adding databases dynamically, meaning
you can add new databases when your directory needs them without taking your
entire directory off-line.

About Suffixes

Each database contains the data within a suffix of your Directory Server. You can
create both root and sub suffixes to organize the contents of your directory tree. A
root suffix is the entry at the top of a tree. It can be the root of your directory tree
or part of a larger tree you have designed for your Directory Server.
A sub suffix is a branch underneath a root suffix. The data for root and sub
suffixes are contained by databases.
Assume, for example, you want to create suffixes to represent the distribution of
your directory data. The directory tree for Corporation appears as
example.com
the following:
Corporation decided to split their directory tree across five
If example.com
different databases, the new tree would appear as this:
90 Netscape Directory Server Deployment Guide • October 2004