THE EXPLOSION OF business-to-business commerce and marketplaces -- environments where partners, customers, and suppliers interact using the same core of information -- are giving directories a chance to shine. To help leverage the store of valuable user data held in directories, the industry is turning toward metadirectory solutions and XML to simplify the task of integrating applications and systems.

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Serving as a layer between the directory itself and the business applications, metadirectories can help link multiple systems to relevant directory information, becoming a "glue" to ensure all applications are synchronized around the same user data.

"The more glue technology we have to bring applications more seamlessly into a platform, the faster we'll have scalability and integrated applications," says Gary Rowe, president of The Burton Group, in Roswell, Ga.

Although Rowe feels that metadirectories hold much promise, he added that final judgment on their true worth will have to wait until a large business puts them through their paces. But with XML, directories may have the common language they need to truly connect with enterprise applications, Rowe says.

"[XML] is the direction of the future," Rowe says, noting that the language allows directory servers to "talk," finding out how data must be structured to be relevant to both systems and XML-based applications. "The underlying data structure can be described in XML and [that] gives us a common starting point -- a much better starting point," Rowe says.

According to Kim Cameron, an architect for Microsoft Metadirectory Solutions (MMS), XML is a "directory wonder child" because it can tie together platforms and link identities across unconnected systems.

"XML is the language that will tie all this together and transform the nature of the [directory] stores," Cameron says. "We mustn't lose LDAP ... but it will ultimately be supplanted by XML."

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft recently released MMS 2.2, which has enhanced provisioning systems and a tighter interface with Active Directory. The XML wizard management agent for MMS 2.2 will allow MMS to interoperate with any XML data store and should emerge this fall. Officials said the company is planning to use XML in many applications, such as BizTalk, to ease application convergence.

"[XML] is certainly a piece of technology that's going to make using directories an awful lot easier, because the directory language is now basically in English -- using XML. It's very easy to look at XML-based files and coding and understand the kind of information that's being moved back and forth," explains Jackson Shaw, a product manager for Windows 2000 server at Microsoft. "XML is picking up steam, but there is still a long way to go to get a lot of applications, especially legacy apps, moved over to speaking XML."

For iPlanet, making sure developers can access directory information and use it in their applications is of utmost importance, because more directory-enabled applications result in more reasons to implement directories for business use, explains Wes Wasson, vice president of product marketing at Mountain View, Calif.-based iPlanet.

"We're acting under the premise that directories will be the 'killer app' for the next era of e-business," Wasson says. "The next phase of the Net economy is about users and giving them personalized experiences, which can be done through directory information."

The iPlanet Directory Application Integration (DAI) architecture sits atop the Unified User Management Services layer, which includes iPlanet directory and customer management solutions. Through the DAI, application developers can incorporate directory information into their applications using a series of tags rather than having to write out code and understand the intricacies of LDAP.

According to David McNeely, director of product management for iPlanet directory and security products, a platform such as DAI that is extensible and makes a directory valuable to developers will help directory and metadirectory technology evolve.

Novell is also aiming to ramp up directories' value through its DirXML technology, which is finally coming to light after being announced about a year ago.

The company is pushing DirXML as "more than a metadirectory," says Ed Anderson, director of product management for directory services at Provo, Utah-based Novell. "DirXML provides certain links for synchronizing data [as does a metadirectory], but using the XML piece, data flows by policy rather than just technology," Anderson says.

Combining the basic concept of a metadirectory with XML and policy management capabilities to ensure b-to-b security, DirXML uses drivers to link applications with directories and databases as well as with their partners' applications so that systems can access any information they need -- even if it lies outside their own corporation.

"The DirXML engine enables all the business logic to be operated from the engine itself -- the driver is just the conduit," says Nick Nikols, a DirXML architect at Novell. "This is what directory-enabled [solutions] need to be: a way to access information easily and quickly and be flexible to work with the systems a company needs to hook into."