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Directory Server Integration - Technology Brief

FileHold supports a flexible and easy to implement integration, with Microsoft Active Directory and other popular directory services. To achieve this FileHold has adopted Microsoft's Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) technology. ADAM is a stand-alone Active Directory without domain management capabilities. Depending on the required deployment scenario ADAM store, which is a part of FileHold '08 User and Role Management Module, can be easily and frequently synchronized with Active Directory. Users and user groups, can also be populated with users that do not reside in Active Directory (are not domain members).

Integrated windows authentication is supported for all FileHold '08 users who reside in Active Directory. Authentication is synchronized with Active Directory eliminating the need for an additional process of logging into FileHold '08. This tight integrations saves steps for users who have logged into their Windows accounts and have been authenticated against Active Directory.

For more complex deployment scenarios other Microsoft technologies and products, such as Identity Integration Feature Pack (IIF) and Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS), can synchronize users with other directory and non directory based identity stores.

Optional Integration with Microsoft Active Directory

For most deployment scenarios FileHold '08 ships with ADAM based User and Role Manager to provide initial and ongoing synchronization with Active Directory objects (users and groups) using ADAM Synchronizer. This solution is inexpensive, easy to deploy and manage and is perfectly suited for the scenario in which Active Directory is the only required identity store to integrate with. For more information on this utility contact sales@filehold.com

Integration with Other Directory Services

For more complex scenarios that require integration with other components of an enterprise wide IT solution and/or directory services it is possible to base the identity integration and directory synchronization on more advanced technologies and tools available from Microsoft. Two such alternatives include:

• A solution based on Identity Integration Feature Pack (IIF) which allows for multidirectional synchronization between FileHold '08 ADAM based User and Role Manger, Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange. IIF is a free technology available from Microsoft.
• A solution based on Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) which provides for multidirectional synchronization between FileHold '08 ADAM based User and Role Manger and any directory or non directory identity store such as: Active Directory, Sun's Java System Directory Server and other LDAP based identity stores, Exchange, Lotus Notes, SQLServer and Oracle. MIIS is a separate product and is already a part of many enterprise wide IT infrastructure solutions.

Integration with directory services, which utilizes IIF and MIIS, is a more complex solution and would most likely require effort from the customer's IT department and some involvement of FileHold Professional Services Team.

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Custom Integration with Other Directory Services Using FileHold's Professional Services Team

Active Directory and its stand-alone ADAM counterpart are compliant with the popular Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) standard. The FileHold Product Development and Professional Services Teams are well versed in writing software calls which access Active Directory users, objects and their properties and synchronize them with the ADAM store residing within FileHold '08 User and Role Manager. If needed the FileHold team would leverage this knowledge to develop custom connectors to any LDAP based directory services.