News

OctetString updates Virtual Directory Engine

• By Rich Seeley
• July 21, 2003

OctetString Inc., a developer of directory middleware, last week brought out enhancements to its Virtual Directory Engine that includes expanded support for Microsoft Active Directory-enabled applications.

Virtual Directory Engine (VDE) 2.02 addresses a developer's need for a middleware solution that supports access to enterprise portal applications for multiple departments or subsidiaries on different platforms, said Clayton Donley, CTO at Palatine, Ill.-based OctetString.

VDE eliminates the need to create meta directories that duplicate existing data in new repositories, he explained. The OctetString product combines identity information virtually and federates user data so that records from multiple directories appear to the applications as if they resided in a single directory, Donley added.

This is helpful in developing portal applications for more than one department or subsidiary with different environments for storing user passwords and preferences, he explained. For example, Donley said one of OctetString's customers is using VDE in a PeopleSoft portal application that is designed to be accessed by users at both the corporate office and a wholly owned subsidiary.

"While they both had Microsoft Active Directory, they were different environments," Donley said, "so they couldn't just access them all as one. What we were able to do is use our middleware tool to sit between the applications and those two Microsoft Active Directory [implementations] and provide a view to that application as if it were all one big environment."

More information on VDE is available at www.octetstring.com.