Designing Your Directory Tree64 Netscape Directory Server Deployment Guide • December 2001Replication ConsiderationsDuring directory tree design, consider which entries you are replicating. A naturalway to describe a set of entries to be replicated is to specify the distinguished name(DN) at the top of a subtree and replicate all entries below it. This subtree alsocorresponds to a database, a directory partition containing a portion of thedirectory data.For example, in an enterprise environment you can organize your directory tree sothat it corresponds to the network names in your enterprise. Network names tendto not change, so the directory tree structure will be stable. Further, using networknames to create the top level branches of your directory tree is useful when you usereplication to tie together different directory servers.For example, example.com Corporation has three primary networks known asflightdeck.example.com, tickets.example.com, and hanger.example.com.They initially branch their directory tree as follows:ou An organizational unit. This attribute is typically used torepresent a smaller divisional branching of your enterprise thanan organization. Organizational units are generally subordinateto the preceding organization.st A state or province name.l A locality, such as a city, country, office, or facility name.dc A domain component as discussed in “Suffix NamingConventions,” on page 59.NOTE A common mistake is to assume that you search your directorybased on the attributes used in the distinguished name. However,the distinguished name is only a unique identifier for the directoryentry and cannot be searched against.Instead, search for entries based on the attribute-data pairs storedon the entry itself. Thus, if the distinguished name of an entry iscn=Babs Jensen,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com, then a searchfor dc=example will not match that entry unless you have explicitlyput dc:example as an attribute in that entry.Table 4-1 Traditional DN Branch Point Attributes (Continued)Attribute Name Definition
