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How Distribution Works

In a distributed directory, many DSAs cooperate to form a single namespace. Parts of the namespace are served by different DSAs. An application connected to any DSA can search the entire namespace.

From the client's point of view, the directory is a single entity, because every request is routed to the appropriate DSA within the namespace.

The DSAs may be all on the same computer, or they may be on different computers.

A distributed directory is useful to organizations with offices in several locations, because each office can maintain its own directory, and yet to a client it appears as just one directory. It is also useful for large directories because you improve performance when you share the data across different servers.

A distributed directory can incorporate LDAP servers. CA Directory fully complies with the LDAP standards, which means that it can be used as a backbone, to unify directories that can only use LDAP.