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This section details the software and hardware platforms adopted by EuroView. A number of factors influence the choice of platform:
• Up to date implementations.
• Reliability.
• Efficiency.
• Previous experience with the platform.
• Vendor planned upgrade paths.
In principle, any implementation of X.500 can be connected to the EuroView directory. However, to contain the support effort required, the partners have agreed to standardize on products based on the Isode Limited software for the core DSAs. Two DSA implementations are available: IC-DSA which supports both X.500 (1993) and LDAP, and Quipu which supports X.500 (1988) and the Internet extensions.
The major advantage of the Isode software is that it is provided in source code form. This means that the software can then (potentially at least) be tailored to specific requirements. One implementation enhancement currently under consideration is improvement of the existing search algorithms to work better with international character sets.
At present there is only one widely available public domain version of LDAP, and that is the release made by the University of Michigan. Commercial implementations are beginning to appear, though these are all derived from the Michigan code. The public domain code has undergone a number of releases, and is known to be a stable piece of software.
The recommended hardware platform for EuroView servers are Sun Sparc machines running a reasonably up to date version of the Solaris operating system (the current version being 2.5). This is the test reference platform for the Isode Limited source release and is thus likely to be the best hardware on which to run the service.
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Title: EuroView Service Design
Issue: 1.1
Date: 17