Oracle Internet Directory (OID) is a

directory service In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network r ...

produced by

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

, which functions compatible with

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory servi ...

version 3.

Functionality

OID makes the following features available from within an Oracle database environment: * integration with Oracle 8i and subsequent

databases In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

for ease of use and administration * a scalable, multi-platform listing structure for reliable and safe

intranet An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in c ...

integration *

synchronization Synchronization is the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. For example, the conductor of an orchestra keeps the orchestra synchronized or ''in time''. Systems that operate with all parts in synchrony are said to be synchronou ...

of OID-based listings (also with distributed

applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

) * integration of existing

public key Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic al ...

certificates,

digital wallet A digital wallet, also known as an e-wallet, is an electronic device, online service, or software program that allows one party to make electronic transactions with another party bartering digital currency units for goods and services. This can ...

s (e-wallets) and entrance privileges * co-existence with other LDAP implementations via Oracle's Directory Integration Platform (DIP) * administration tools, including: ** routing policies ** system management

objects Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...

such as Oracle Directory Manager (also known as "oidadmin" or "ODM") ** technical support regarding the quality of the services ** delegated administrative service

Implementation

OID uses standard Oracle database structures to store its internal tables. In Oracle version 9 databases, by default, many Oracle LDAP Table Stores use

tablespace A tablespace is a storage location where the actual data underlying database objects can be kept. It provides a layer of abstraction between physical and logical data, and serves to allocate storage for all DBMS managed segments. (A database se ...

s with names beginning with the OLTS_ (and occasionally P1TS_) prefixes. Relevant default schemas used may include ODS (for "Oracle directory server") and ODSCOMMON.

Operation

The OID Control Utility (OIDCTL) serves as a command-line tool for starting and stopping the OID server. The OID Monitor process interprets and executes the OIDCTL commands.

Marketing

In comparing Oracle Internet Directory with its competitors, Oracle Corporation stresses that it uses as its foundation an Oracle database; whereas many competing products (such as

Oracle Directory Server Enterprise Edition The Sun Java System Directory Server is a discontinued Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, LDAP Directory service, directory server and Directory Services Markup Language, DSML server written in C (programming language), C and originally develope ...

and

Novell eDirectory eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was in ...

) do not rely on an enterprise-strength relational database, but instead on embedded database engines similar to

Berkeley DB Berkeley DB (BDB) is an unmaintained embedded database software library for key/value data, historically significant in open source software. Berkeley DB is written in C with API bindings for many other programming languages. BDB stores arbitr ...

. Integration with the Oracle database makes many of the technologies available for Oracle database available for Oracle Internet Directory, and improvements that Oracle makes in the database space can instantly flow through to its LDAP implementation. For marketing purposes, OID forms part of the

Oracle Identity Management Oracle Identity Management, a software suite marketed by Oracle Corporation, provides identity and access management (IAM) technologies. The name of the software suite closely resembles the name of one of its components, Oracle Identity Manager. ...

suite of

Oracle Application Server The Oracle Application Server 10g (the "g" stands for ''grid'') (short Oracle AS), consists of an integrated, standards-based software platform. It forms part of Oracle Corporation's Fusion Middleware technology stack. The heart of Oracle Applic ...

Distribution

Oracle database version 9 included OID bundled as an extra facility. OID shipped with the

version 10. Oracle Corporation makes the most recent version of OID available only as part of the Identity Management-suite bundling of Oracle Application Server (10.1.4.0.1). Oracle Internet Directory 11g forms part of Oracle directory services (ODS).

References

{{Primarysources, date=January 2007

Benchmarks

50 Million Users on Sparc T5

10 Million Users on Exalogic

500 Million Users on Exadata

2 Billion Users

External links

an installation guide
Directory services Oracle software