The iPlanet Directory Server is a scalable system for running an enterprise-wide directory containing lists of people and resources. Based on the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), corporate administrators can create and users can easily query directories of people and information stored on intranets, extranets, or the Internet. Further, because many applications provide built-in support for LDAP based user authentication, administrators can manage a single user-repository for the organization that can be used by multiple applications to both authenticate and retrieve stored information for users such as access levels and user profiles.

Some of the many features supported by the iPlanet Directory Server include multiple levels of access control from anonymous access to access based on the user's identity, IP address, or domain name; support for SSL encryption during both LDAP operations and data replication; password policy management; and automatic replication of information among multiple LDAP servers.

Key enhancements in the latest release include:

- "Multi-Master Replication," which allows for the designation of two writable master servers such that if the main server goes down, both read and write operations can contiue on the second server. When the first server returns it is automatically updated with the modifications made to the second.

- A new multi-database architecture providing carrier class performance and scalability.

- "Chaining" technology that allows LDAP directories that span multiple databases and/or directory servers to appear as a single LDAP database to requesting clients; simplifying the authentication process.

The iPlanet Directory Server 5.0 is available now to existing customers, the trial download version is expected to appear on the iPlanet site within the next week (the beta version is already available). Also available from iPlanet is the Directory SDK, allowing developers to write C, Java, JavaScript, and Perl code to integrate their Web applications with the directory.

Contact iPlanet for current pricing.