Salvatore Salamone
Microsoft's Windows dominates the business desktop environment, and now the company is targeting the enterprise with its Windows NT, SQL Server, and other Back Office products. However, network managers can encounter and must often manage several different directory services in an enterprise. To simplify this management, Microsoft is promoting new Open Directory Service Interfaces (ODSI), a set of APIs that will let Windows NT interoperate with the directories of other systems, including Novell's NetWare Directory Service, Banyan Systems' StreetTalk, Lotus' Notes, X.500, or any other directory for which someone writes a service provider.
With ODSI-enabled applications and operating systems, network administrators wil
l be able to manage different directories from a single management console. Thus, a network-management program such as Microsoft's Systems Management Server could handle multiple back-end directory services.
Microsoft has already developed two ODSI interfaces. One, the Network Provider Interface, allows for a single log-in to multiple directories. The other, called WinSock Resolution and Registration, provides a way to register an application with multiple directories.
The company plans two other interfaces: An OLE Database interface that allows access to databases, and an OLE Directory Services interface that allows for the management of common directory objects. The first versions of network OSes and management applications that support ODSI will probably appear in 1996.
Jamie Lewis, president of networking consultancy The Burton Group (Salt Lake City, UT), says ODSI is a significant step forward. "It will give Windows applications access to directory services via native Windows interfaces
," says Lewis. "ODSI could also help Banyan and Novell make StreetTalk and NDS more successful because more applications will use directory services."
Microsoft Strengthens Windows Directory Services
