Cool thanks! How about adding it to the website too?
Alex On 4/4/07, Ole Ersoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Solid! I'll make sure I add it in the "Concepts" section of the DAS design book. I'll put in a JIRA to get it moved to a general area as well. Cheers, - Ole Alex Karasulu wrote: > To clarify from previous threads ... > > Definition > ------------- > > A partition is a physically distinct store for a subset of the entries > contained within a DSA (Directory Server/Service Agent A.K.A the LDAP > server). The entries of a partition all share the same suffix which is > the distinguished name of the namingContext from which the stored > entries in the partition are hung from the DIT. A partition can be > implemented using any storage mechanism or can even be backed in > memory. A partition simply has to implement the Partition ( 1.5) > interface and by doing so can be mounted in the server at it's > suffix/namingContext. > > The server can have any number of partitions (with any implementation) > attached to various namingContexts which are published by the RootDSE > (empty string dn "") using the namingContexts operational attribute. So > if you want to see the partitions served by the server you can query the > RootDSE for this information. > > Motivation For Terminology > ------------------------------------ > > I decided to use the term Partition to denote this structure in the > server rather than use the term backend. Why? Well to me the backend > is everything after the protocol which is basically all of the core. > The frontend is the MINA based LDAP protocol service provider. Another > reason for this choice was the fact that a partition is a separate > physical store that separates a subset of the entries. It partitions > the DIT, the namespace hence the term "partition" made sense to me. > > Another crazy reason for this comes from my days as a Linux system > developer while writing device drivers (ahhh those were the days). > Anyways I really like to parallel the concepts of the Linux file system > terminology since it is almost exactly the same concept but in another > domain. Basically file system partitions which can be backed by any > kind of random access store can be mounted at mount points on the file > system. To me the mount point is analogous to the namingContext used to > hang the entries stored therein off the DIT (here I'm relating entries > to files). Note this analogy does breakdown in some places but over > all it's a descent analogy which warranted using the name Partition > rather than Backend. > > Alex >
