LDAP Speeds Embedded Provisioning

July 22, 2002

Keeping track of a horde of embedded network devices is hard enough without trying to keep their software up to date. But that's just what Novell's Embedded LDAP Device Provisioning Development Kit is designed to do. Built on Novell's powerful eDirectory technology, the kit can be used to develop lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) embedded devices. Novell eDirectory servers support LDAP.

The kit provides client software support for all major real-time operating systems. This includes basic LDAP support and authentication. The LDAP support works with any LDAP server, including Novell's. The provisioning agent is part of the package, but the server support is eDirectory-specific. Provisioning is performed using an encrypted secure-socket layer (SSL) link. Any aspects of the client can be changed, from data to application code.

Novell's eDirectory's track record is extensive, and its quality as a distributed management tool is well known though it earned this reputation in the PC network environment. The big advantage for network managers is the ability to use one tool for user and device management. This includes policy-based administration as well as individual management of devices and users.

The Embedded LDAP Device Provisioning Development Kit costs $5000. The royalty for devices is $4 per client. Quantity discounts are available. The eDirectory service is free for up to 250,000 objects. Contact Novell for larger servers.

Novell Inc., www.novell.com; (888) 321-4272.

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

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