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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:
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