On Bounding-Schemas for LDAP Directories

As our world gets more networked, ever increasing amounts of information are being stored in LDAP directories. While LDAP directories have considerable flexibility in the modeling and retrieval of information for network applications, the notion of schema they provide for enabling consistent and coherent representation of directory information is rather weak. In this paper, we propose an expressive notion of bounding-schemas for LDAP directories, and illustrate their practical utility. Bounding-schemas are based on lower bound and upper bound specifications for the content and structure of an LDAP directory. Given a bounding-schema specification, we present algorithms to efficiently determine: (i) if an LDAP directory is legal w.r.t. the bounding-schema, and (ii) if directory insertions and deletions preserve legality. Finally, we show that the notion of bounding-schemas has wider applicability, beyond the specific context of LDAP directories.