Challenges
LDIF is an interchange format for representing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) contents and update requests. LDAP directories hold information with similar attributes, organized both logically and hierarchically; e.g., an address book sorted by name, with email and phone data attached.
Advanced LDAP deployments today may use Domain Name System (DNS) names for structuring the hierarchy, with underlying entries representing a multiple entry tree.
However, while LDIF records may hold large volumes of customer and transaction information, they are not stored in a format that most applications can import or process. Most tools that support LDIF files cannot process them efficiently in high volumes.
Solutions
IRI delivers LDIF and other file conversion functionality in several products. Choose based on need:
LDIF File Conversion Only
Use the free (Lite) edition of IRI NextForm to convert files in LDIF to other file formats (e.g., CSV, XML, text, etc.), or from other formats to LDIF. NextForm also supports data type conversion at the field level, and record layout remapping.
You will need the ODBC version of NextForm to target database tables directly.
NextForm file definitions work in same SortCL programs powering the IRI CoSort data manipulation package and larger IRI Voracity data management platform. Thus you can re-use the metadata you're producing in NextForm if you upgrade to another IRI product for fast data transformation, cleansing, masking, unification, reporting, etc.
LDIF Data Transformation & Conversion
The SortCL program in IRI CoSort or Voracity can:
- transform LDAP data (i.e., sort, join, aggregate, cross-calculate, etc.)
- convert files in LDIF to other file formats and create LDIF files from those formats
- cleanse, enrich, and standardize data in LDIF files to improve their quality
- mask PII or other sensitive fields in LDAP files
- report from LDIF file sources
using a simple 4GL for layout and manipulation definitions, or a powerful free GUI built on Eclipse.
Map one or more input files in LDIF to and from other formats. Create detail, summary, or delta (change data capture and slowly changing dimension) reports from LDIF sources. Hand off pre-sorted, filtered and converted subsets to BI tools, database load utilities or other applications.
LDIF Data Masking & Test Data
Use IRI FieldShield to protect fields in production LDIF files with encryption, masking, etc.
Use IRI RowGen if you need test data in LDIF file formats. RowGen uses the same layout metadata as NextForm and SortCL, so you can easily move between test data generation and real data transformation.
All of the functionality above and to the left is available in the IRI Voracity data management platform built on Eclipse and powered by CoSort SortCL or Hadoop engines. See the IRI product-feature matrix here.
