Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 3.1 Common Sources of Complexity
Source
Impact
Identity management
Directory services and identity management
determine almost all other aspects of an enterprise
network. Commercial solutions include technologies
such as SunONE, Novell's eDirectory, and Microsoft's
dominant Active Directory, while open-source shops
commonly employ Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol (LDAP) solutions such as the common
OpenLDAP service. Federated identity management
solutions aid in transferring credentials across
authentication boundaries, allowing disparate
technologies to integrate more transparently, but
they risk compromising multiple authentication
systems if the IM server is compromised. Federated
systems also create risk because administrative access
can temporarily associate account credentials,
providing an easy mechanism for unauthorized access
to protected resources.
Application stack
The application stack includes technologies such as
the operating system, user suite, Web server, and
many other technologies that together make up the
operational environment for servers and workstations
within the enterprise. Deeply integrated enterprises
may make use of a single vendor's stack, such as
IBM's popular WebSphere environment or the familiar
Microsoft server/service/client suite of products, while
the open-source LAMP stack is comprised of
applications from dozens if not hundreds of sources.
The basic L-A-M-P stack itself is not wedded to a
particular source, as Linux has hundreds of possible
sources and variations, while the Apache Web server
and MySQL database platform are developed by
separate vendors. Even the “P” in LAMP can refl ect
several options for application development—Pearl,
PHP, Python, and Primate are all used interchangeably
here. Without standardization, users can encounter
diffi culty when moving from one area of an
organization to another, while update projects and
upgrades become complex to plan and implement
across a varied spectrum of products.
Application
development
(
continued)
At the most fundamental level of development, the
selection of programmatic style and language affects
development and customization of applications used
in anything other than default confi gurations.
