Access, Searching and Indexing of Directories (asid) 


Charter
Status: Concluded February, 1999 

Chair(s):

 Patrik Faltstrom 
 Tim Howes 

Description of Working Group:
There is a clear need to provide and deploy a well managed 
Directory Service for the Internet. A so-called White Pages Directory 
Service providing people and organizational information, is especially 
long overdue.  While the ultimate goal is a general Directory Service 
for the Internet, this is too ambitious a goal to be tackled by a 
single working group. Therefore ASID will keep a tight focus on access 
and synchronization protocols for an Internet White Pages Directory 
Service.

Other related working groups will be formed in the Applications Area  
that will deal with other aspects of the Internet Directory Service.
 
Currently there are various protocols under development in the 
Internet that aim to provide such a service: Internet X.500, WHOIS++, 
NETFIND, CSO, RWHOIS, etc.  To allow these services to evolve to a 
ubiquitous Internet Directory Service, a hybrid system that allows 
interaction between the various different services is a requirement.
  
The ASID Working Group will define, evolve, and standardize protocols,
algorithms and access methods for a White Pages Directory Service on 
the Internet.

The following protocols (some still under development, some completed 
by other IETF working groups) will be considered by the working group:
 
 - Lightweight Directory Acces Protocols (LDAP and Connectionless 
   LDAP)

 - User Friendly Naming (UFN) and User Friendly Searching (UFS)

 - The SOLO directory access and searching system

 - The WHOIS++ directory service
	  
The following work items are handled by other groups, and as such are
outside the scope of this group. However their results are important 
to the development of a White Pages Directory Service, and will be taken
into account:
		
 - The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

 - The UR* definitions

 - The NETFIND directory service
		 
The group will focus on harmonizing, evolving and developing protocols
and algorithms that deal with access to and synchronization of Directory 
Service, both ad hoc and standards-based, with a goal of converging here 
possible towards a hybrid system that ties together various forms of 
Directory Service.  Clearly, protocol-level integration is only part of 
the solution.  But to keep this group tightly focused, harmonizing 
directory information and service models will be tackled by other 
working groups.

Request for Comments: