IBM Systems Magazine, Power Systems --- IBM i digital edition, January 2009 - 44

Tips & Techniques Tactical solutions for IBM i customers Conﬁguring a Distributed Directory on IBM i BY GUANG BAO LIU AND JOHN MCMEEKING This is part one of a two-part series. Part two will appear in a future issue. BM Tivoli* Directory Server (ITDS) has added distributed-directory support in version 6.1. A distributed directory is a directory environment in which data is partitioned across multiple Directory Servers. It’s composed of a set of back-end servers and a proxy server, which is a special type of ITDS that doesn’t have a relational database manager (RDBM) back end and can’t take part in replication. A proxy server sits at the front end of a distributed directory and provides efficient routing and load balancing of user requests, thereby improving performance in certain situations and providing a unified directory view to the client. Back-end servers hold data while a proxy server manages the topology. The proxy server is configured with connection information for each of the back-end servers. The distributed-director y feature along with the proxy-server feature should allow a cluster of directories to appear as one, and will enable directory deployments to hold hundreds of millions of entries. If you have a huge number of entries, you should consider deploying a distributed directory. Starting with i 6.1, ITDS for IBM i is capable of acting as back-end server within an ITDS distributed directory starting with i 6.1. ITDS for i can’t act as the proxy server, nor does it include the tools required to set up a distributed directory. The proxy server runs on another platform (e.g., AIX*, Linux* or Windows*) while the actual directory data resides on one or more IBM i Directory Servers or a mixture of IBM i and other supported Tivoli Directory Servers. This article explains how to set up a distributed directory with IBM i Directory Server as a back-end I server. As an example, we’ll set up two IBM i Directory Servers and one ITDS on a Linux platform, and we’ll use ITDS as the proxy server on the Linux platform. We’ll integrate the proxy ser ver and the three Directory Servers into a distributed directory. Figure 1 (page 45) shows the topology of the distributed directory for our example. We’ll focus on the setting of ITDS for i as a back-end server of the distributed directory. We won’t show how to split data among the servers. If you need to use the Distributed Directory Setup tool of ITDS to split data, refer to “Tivoli Directory Server documentation” in the Tivoli Director y Server V6.1 Information Center (http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ tivihelp/v2r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.IBMDS.doc/ admin_gd20.htm). Conﬁguring IBM i Directory Servers T he Director y Ser ver is included in, and is automatically installed with, the IBM i base operating system. Let’s configure two new instances. Run the Directory Server Configuration wizard to customize the Directory Server settings from IBM i Navigator. Refer to the IBM i Information Center for detailed information on configuring the Directory Server for IBM i, including an IBM Redbooks* publication (see “Resources,” page 47). In IBM i Navigator, expand “Network,” then expand “Servers,” click “TCP/IP” and right-click “IBM Tivoli Directory Server for i.” From the pull-down menu, click the Manage Instance option to display the instance-management window. Select “New” to create a new instance and a step-by-step wizard will lead you through the creation. Create two Directory Server instances on two different systems. We’ll use these two IBM i 44 JANUARY 2009 ibmsystemsmag.com

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IBM Systems Magazine, Power Systems --- IBM i digital edition, January 2009

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