[Fedora-directory-users] Virtual DIT views vs hierarchical DIT

[Pete Rowley]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: fedora-directory-users-bounces at redhat.com 
> [mailto:fedora-directory-users-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf 
> Of Mike Jackson
> Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 12:10 PM
> To: Sam Tran; General discussion list for the Fedora 
> Directory server project.
> Subject: Re: [Fedora-directory-users] Virtual DIT views vs 
> hierarchical DIT
> 
> Now, if you put them in seperate branches, then you can scope 
> the queries accordingly, and the scoping actually has some 
> effect on search response time.

Yes, I think most people mean this kind of thing when they talk to flat
dits.  We really mean flatish dits verses deep dits.

> 
> If you put them all in the same branch, e.g. the root, then 
> scoping your search to the virtual branches does not help to 
> speed things up at all, afaik. Also, you can exceed the 
> lookthrough limits easier, which can make things really slow.

Actually, I disagree with this.  When you search a view you are not merely
scoping the search, you are (inadvertantly) supplying a fuller search
filter.  If the attributes in the views are indexed, as they probably should
be for important views, the search should be very efficient.  In some cases
it may even make searches that would otherwise be an unindexed search, an
indexed search.

> 
> The law of directory maintenance is that the deeper the 
> hierarchy, the more likely it is to change. Because of this, 
> I like to stay relatively flat, not more than 2 levels deep 
> in most cases.

And that is why views exist :)  Don't move the entries, move the dit
structure.

> However, I still would never design a flat DIT 
> because I believe that it takes away flexibility of some 
> management applications, mostly third-party. And with third 
> party applications, you don't have the possibility to modify 
> them to be "view compatible".

Usually you give a third party application a base dn, that base dn can be a
view.  Views were designed such that the client need not know it is using a
view based dit so compatibility isn't much of an issue for most clients.