THE MIGRATION

In order to exploit the superior features of Oracle Internet Directory and Net8, ease network management, and lower administration cost, Oracle strongly recommends customers migrate from Oracle Names and TNSNAMES.ORA file to LDAP directory naming using Oracle Internet Directory as soon as it is feasible. Oracle9i is the terminal release of Oracle Names.

CHOOSING AN LDAP DIRECTORY SERVER

It is important to choose the right software to power your directory deployment. There are a number of directory server products available on the market today from a variety of vendors, varying widely in capabilities and cost. The challenge is to pick the right products that will best meet your directory requirements and work well in your environment. Choosing a directory that is not certified with or does not support the applications and standards you need can lead to increased costs for maintaining your services and all the applications that surround it. Conversely, a directory server product that can accommodate 10% more traffic at the high end may allow an organization to deploy five LDAP servers instead of six, resulting in a potential saving of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of a service. Another factor that makes choosing the right software crucial is that it can be expensive and time-consuming to replace one software product with another - even though open standards such as LDAP tend to reduce such cost.

Directory products tend to vary widely in their capabilities. Although LDAP is a general-purpose protocol, the needs of one directory deployment may be quite different from those of another. For example, an LDAP server implementation that provides strong security features might be well suited for deployment on the public Internet, whereas another product that provides minimal security may be appropriate for a small workgroup. Typically, though, the most stringent of the requirements applicable to a given deployment tend to drive the choice of directory server in most organizations.

There are several criteria in evaluating a directory server:

• Core features
• Management features
• Reliability
• Performance and scalability
• Security
• Standards conformance
• Interoperability and vendor support
• Cost
• Flexibility and extensibility

Oracle certifies Oracle Internet Directory as the LDAP directory to be used with Oracle Names, Net8, and the rest of the Oracle product stack. OID is the most scaleable, reliable and secure directory available on the market today. It has a growing list of supported, certified vendors, and has already become the directory of choice for most high-end, carrier-grade deployments. In addition, the newly-released directory integration platform (March 2001) enables OID to synchronize data with virtually any other source of directory data - whether it is stored in an LDAP-compliant directory or not.

TOPOLOGY DESIGN

The directory service's topology describes the way an organization divides its directory tree aiming physical servers and how it allocates those servers among this organization's physical locations. Making good choices about an organization directory topology will help it achieve the best possible performance for its directory-enabled applications, increase directory availability, and better manage the directory.

Depending on company's IT structure and responsibility distribution, capabilities of directory software, and speed/traffic of different location in the physical network, an organization can have several different topology designs. Oracle Names customers can replicate the domain structure used in Oracle Names, or can develop an entirely different one depending on the companies' needs. In order to simplify the migration procedure, Oracle recommends that customers take the opportunity to redesign and simplify overly complex topologies prior to the migration from Oracle Names, or if that is not possible, after the migration to Oracle Internet Directory.

Below is an example of acme.com's topology. The hierarchical directory information tree (DIT) of acme.com is partitioned into three regions of North America, Asia Pacific, and European Union; each server is responsible for one region. Please note the entry of a cn=OracleContext entry is required to create and store all Oracle objects in Oracle Internet Directory. Choosing locations for cn=OracleContext depends on how the administration of the directory tree will be delegated.

ORACLE NAMES SERVER MIGRATION/TNSNAMES.ORA FILE EXPORT

Oracle provides tools enabling you to export network objects from Oracle Names server, or found in a TNSNAMES.ORA file, into Oracle Internet Directory.

MIGRATING FROM ORACLE NAMES SERVER

Three tasks need to be accomplished:

• Create structure in Oracle Internet Directory. Net8 Configuration Assistant enables administrators to create an entry called cn=OracleContext to store all Oracle objects in Oracle Internet Directory. This can be done either during the installation or after the installation.
• Obtain the list of objects to export: NAMESCTL offers three commands to help with this task: LIST_DOMAINS, LIST_DELEGATED, and LIST_OBJECTS.
• Export objects to Oracle Internet Directory: The NAMESCTL utility exports network objects into the directory with the DUMP_LDAP command, which enables administrators to export the objects to an LDIF file or directly into Oracle Internet Directory. This command allows administrators to export to either a similar DIT or a dissimilar DIT.

EXPORTING THE TNSNAMES.ORA FILE

A wizard in Net8 Manager enables administrators to export net service names easily into Oracle Internet Directory. However, the computer performing the export of data must be configured for server directory access.

For more detailed descriptions about this migration, please refer to the current version of Oracle8i Net8 Administrator's Guide.

CLIENT MIGRATION

Two tasks for client migration need to accomplished: first, to configure directory access on client using Net8 Configuration Assistant. This procedure can be done either during the configuration or after the configuration. Then, to choose LDAP as the first naming method in a panel of Net8 Configuration Assistant.

However, given the logistical challenges associated with migrating large number of client machines simultaneously, Oracle recommends that high priority clients be migrated first, and the use of Oracle Names Proxy, a new feature in Oracle9i, which gives customers a grace period to migrate all the clients. This feature is especially useful to customers with large numbers of Oracle clients.

COEXISTENCE ISSUES

Oracle recommends customers to migrate to our most current release to exploit Oracle's new features and enhancements. However, to provide interoperability with previous releases and facilitate migration, Oracle provides some coexistence solutions:

• Oracle8i clients can connect to pre-Oracle8i databases;
• Pre-Oracle8i clients cannot use LDAP-compliant directory naming for name resolution;
• Pre-Oracle8i clients can continue to use Oracle Names to connect to Oracle8i databases, and the upcoming Oracle Names Proxy to connect to Oracle9i databases.

CONCLUSION

The LDAP-compliant directory naming method has been implemented in Oracle databases starting from Oracle8i Release 2. LDAP is the clear direction for Oracle databases networking management and configuration. Oracle9i takes a great step forward by enhancing several features in directory naming, which is expected to reduce customer's Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) significantly. In order to take advantage of these superior features, Oracle strongly recommends customers to migrate from Oracle Names and TNSNAMES.ORA file to LDAP-compliant directory naming at the first opportunity. The tools provided in Oracle9i facilitate this migration in a seamless fashion.

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