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| eDirectory for the Beginner |
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| February 2002 |
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| DeveloperNet University Course |
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Reduce the Cost of Network Computing
Significant Return on Investment. A recent white paper by International Data Corporation found that the three-year return on investment (ROI) for companies that use NDS averages 210 percent. By centralizing management and simplifying tasks such as password administration, adding and deleting users, changing user configuration and access rights, and handling application installation and upgrades, companies both large and small report gains of 20 to 30 percent in IT staff operational efficiency. Staff needed to administer servers, desktops and applications was reduced by an average of 33 percent, and the need for system administrators to travel to remote locations was virtually eliminated.
Increased Network Efficiency using Replication. With the standard replication features in eDirectory 8.5 you can ensure optimum network performance. Figure 4 shows how you can divide the directory into partitions and distribute replicas of these partitions to distant servers, placing resources closer to users who need them. Because users will not have to access a central database each time they log in to the directory, authentication and access to data is almost immediate.
Figure 4:
Users authenticating to their local partition of eDirectory 8.5 instead of authenticating across an expensive WAN.
A replicated directory increases reliability. When a copy of the directory is placed on every server in the partition, directory services will be available when a server goes down or if a link is accidentally severed. eDirectory 8.5 enables you to construct a system where server failure, maintenance, or temporary loss of a communication link will not affect your users' access to directory services and directory-enabled applications.
Reduced hardware costs. It is not necessary to purchase a new server to store a backup copy of each partition; instead, you may store copies of several partitions on one server.
eDirectory 8.5 takes up little disk space. eDirectory is equally conservative with regard to bandwidth usage across the network. Partitioning across wide area network (WAN) links and sending only directory changes to replicas are only a few of eDirectory's features that help you economize on hardware resources.
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