Datamation Discussion Group.

What work has been done to use an X500 Directory as the integrating framework between transactional systems and data warehouses? The X500 Directory Information Tree (DIT) has the following minimum Object Classes: Locality, Country, Organization, Organization Unit, Person, Role, Phone Number, etc. It seems to me that since we can add additional object classes as X500 extensions, you could build up a deep X500 DIT as the Object/data model used to populate the Data Warehouse, and individual object entries within the X500 DIT could be controlled by transactional systems for that entry's class.

I'd put the following object classes, from outer container down to inner component, into this Enterprise Directory DIT:

1. Locality (Starting at Solar System to enable Earth Science and Astronomy entries)

2. Political Entity (From Countries down to city buroughs)

3. Organization

3.1 Government

3.2 Commercial

3.3 Non-Profit

4. Organization Unit

5. Mission

5.1 Function

5.2 Project

6. Process

7. Resource (As Input, Control, Output, or Mechanism of the process)

7.1 Person

7.2 Information

7.2.1 Policy

7.2.2 Procedure

7.2.3 Standards

7.2.4 Mechanism

7.2.5 Data Element

7.2.6 General Knowledge (Encyclopedic)

7.3 Funds

7.4 Personnel

7.5 Materiel

7.6 Facilities

7.7 Services

7.8 Time

7.9 Space

7.10 Energy

8. Life Cycle State (of each resource).

8.1 Conceived

8.2 Requested

8.3 Authorized

8.4 Approved

8.5 Allocated

8.6 Deployed

8.7 Operating

8.8 Maintenance

8.9 Assessment

I suspect that almost every object of interest to any enterprise can be placed within one or more of these classes. As an example, one could build profiles for persons within their organization, asking them to provide their locality, country/state/etc., organization, OU, Mission/Functions/Projects, Processes, Resources, and Resource State. If they had an X500 or LDAP client looking up these objects from an X500-based directory of objects, or adding them, then it would provide a means of refining the Object Model which generates the Data warehouse, as well as being a means to control access to transactional systems. A person could see/act/respond/be-informed as defined in his profile.

Mon Jun 10 1:40:45 1996