Virtual Directory - Capabilities of Virtual Directories

Capabilities of Virtual Directories

Virtual directories can have some or all of the following capabilities:

• Aggregate identity data across sources to create a single point of access.
• Create high-availability for authoritative data stores.
• Act as identity firewall by preventing denial-of-service attacks on the primary data stores through an additional virtual layer.
• Support a common searchable namespace for centralized authentication.
• Present a unified virtual view of user information stored across multiple systems.
• Delegate authentication to backend sources through source-specific security means.
• Virtualize data sources to support migration from legacy data stores without modifying the applications that rely on them.
• Enrich identities with attributes pulled from multiple data stores, based on a link between user entries.

Some advanced identity virtualization platforms can also:

• Enable application-specific, customized views of identity data without violating internal or external regulations governing identity data.Reveal contextual relationships between objects through hierarchical directory structures.
• Develop advanced correlation across diverse sources using correlation rules.
• Build a global user identity by correlating unique user accounts across various data stores, and enrich identities with attributes pulled from multiple data stores, based on a link between user entries.
• Enable constant data refresh for real-time updates through a persistent cache.