XML on LDAP network database

This paper outlines a design that uses the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to describe network database schema. The XML information will be encapsulated in the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) messages. LDAP has already established itself as a popular directory search protocol. Typically, the LDAP response message can carry unintelligible information at the LDAP layer. In the design in this paper, this information will be passed to an XML parser and translator for further processing. As a result, we can modify, update database information without taking down the whole system. This is the main objective in combining both XML and LDAP in a network model. We are investigating two aspects in this paper. The first objective is to use the flexibility and extensibility of XML that allow us to change the database contents dynamically. The second objective is to demonstrate that the combination of XML and LDAP can be a powerful tool in delivering dynamic database content to different recipients on-the-fly.