LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a proposed open
standard for accessing global or local directory services over a
network and/or the Internet. A directory, in this sense, is very
much like a phone book. LDAP can handle other information, but
at present it is typically used to associate names with phone
numbers and email addresses. LDAP directories are designed to
support a high volume of queries, but the data stored in the
directory doesn't change very often. LDAP is much more useful
than a paper phone book, because LDAP's design is intended to
support propagation over LDAP servers throughout the Internet,
much like the Domain Name Service (DNS). DNS servers help to
connect computers to one another based on fully qualified domain
names or the type of service requested from a domain, such as
mail exchange. Without DNS servers, hostnames could not be
translated into IP addresses, which are required for TCP/IP
communication. In the future, LDAP could provide the same type
of global access to many