DISTRIBUTED DIRECTORY ENVIRONMENT USING CLUSTERED LDAP SERVERS

• US 20100332532A1
• Filed: 06/29/2009
• Published: 12/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Joshi, Chandrajit G., Shah, Romil J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,390,156 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/282 Hierarchical databases, e.g. IMS, LDAP data stores or Lotus Notes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1042 using topology management mechanisms

Abstract

The clustering of LDAP servers wherein each LDAP server is connected to the databases of all other LDAP servers in addition to its own database. This creates a mesh of highly available LDAP servers that are loosely connected to all the repositories of LDAP data in the distributed directory environment. Also broadly contemplated herein is the employment of a cluster manager for managing the cluster of LDAP servers.

Claims

1. A method for managing a lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) server in a LDAP server cluster, the method comprising:

providing a cluster manager in a LDAP server cluster comprising LDAP servers, wherein the cluster manager is configured to manage the LDAP server cluster.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the LDAP servers is associated with a database.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein each LDAP server is coupled to all the databases of the other LDAP servers.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising configuring each LDAP server with a configuration information of the cluster manager.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising configuring the cluster manager with configuration information of the LDAP servers in the LDAP server cluster.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising polling the LDAP servers at predetermined intervals for status updates;

and updating the cluster manager if there are any current status updates that are different from any previous updates in the cluster manager.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the cluster manager is configured to poll of the LDAP servers

8. The method of claim 1, wherein a proxy server is configured to process a client request of the LDAP server, wherein the proxy server is communicatively coupled with a client.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein proxy server is configured to choose a LDAP server from the LDAP server cluster to execute the client request.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein said a suffix-to-database mapping table is employed to execute the client request.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the proxy server is configured to process a LDAP search request, and choosing a LDAP server is based on criteria including proximity to a LDAP database and workload parameters.

12. An apparatus comprising:

a physical computing device wherein the physical computing device comprising a main memory and a cluster manager in communication with the main memory;

the cluster manager configured to manage an LDAP server cluster.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the cluster manager is coupled with a LDAP server cluster, the LDAP server cluster comprising a plurality of LDAP servers.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the cluster manager is configured to access databases respectively associated with each of the LDAP servers, each LDAP server being in communication with all of the databases, and a connection medium which interconnects each LDAP server with all of said databases;

and

15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the cluster manager is arranged to perform at least one of configuring each LDAP server with configuration information of the cluster manager, and configuring the cluster manager with configuration information of the LDAP servers, and configured to poll the LDAP servers at predetermined intervals for status updates.

16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the cluster manager is configured to access a proxy server in communication with a client;

and employ the proxy server to process client requests of the LDAP servers.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the cluster manager is configured to employ a proxy server to choose a LDAP server from the LDAP server cluster to perform a client request.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein cluster manager is configured to choose a LDAP server via employing a suffix-to-database mapping table.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the cluster manager is configured to employ a proxy server via processing a LDAP search request;

and choose a LDAP server based on criteria including proximity to a LDAP database and workload parameters.

20. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for managing a lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) server in a LDAP server cluster, the method comprising by providing a cluster manager in a LDAP server cluster comprising LDAP servers, wherein the cluster manager is configured to manage the LDAP server cluster, wherein providing a LDAP server cluster, the LDAP server cluster comprising a plurality of LDAP servers;

providing databases respectively associated with each of the LDAP servers; and

connecting each LDAP server with all of said databases.