Directory Services (BC-SEC-DIR) (SAP Library

Directory Services (BC-SEC-DIR)

Purpose

With directory services, various applications in the IT landscape can access common information at a central location.

The information is stored in a central directory, which the various systems in your IT landscape can access. In this way, the directory serves as an "IT address book" for information that is usually common to applications, such as:

Personnel data (Name, department, organization)
User data and security information (User account, authorizations, public key certificates)
Information about system resources and system services (system ID, application configuration, printer configuration)

With their central information and administration point, directory services provide:

Simple shared information usage by various applications using a standard protocol
Less data inconsistency and redundancy
Reduced Total Cost of Ownership

Implementation Considerations

You can use directory services to maintain information in SAP systems for directory-compatible applications (such as SAPoffice). The access protocol that is used is the Standard Internet protocol Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

Integration

To allow the use of directory services for SAP systems, the SAP Web Application Server is delivered with the LDAP Connector. The LDAP Connector controls the information flow between the SAP Web Application Server and a directory server.