{"id":942,"date":"2008-03-21T09:51:36","date_gmt":"2008-03-21T17:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=942"},"modified":"2008-03-21T10:21:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-21T18:21:00","slug":"attention-application-developers-obey-dave-kearns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/?p=942","title":{"rendered":"Attention application developers: Obey Dave Kearns!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Kearns, knife freshly sharpened, responded to my recent post<\/a> on metadirectory with\u00a0the polemic, “Killing the Metadirectory<\/a>“:<\/p>\n

… My interpretation is that the metadirectory has finally given way to the virtual directory as the synchronization engine for identity data. Kim interprets it differently. He talks about the “Identity Bus<\/font><\/a>” and says that “…you still need identity providers. Isn\u2019t that what directories do? You still need to transform and arbitrate claims, and distribute metadata. Isn\u2019t metadirectory the most advanced technology for that? ” And I have to answer, “no.” The metadirectory is last century's technology and it's day is past.<\/p>\n

The Virtual Directory<\/font><\/a>, the “Directory as a Service” is the model for today and tomorrow. Data that is fresh, always available and available anywhere is what we need. The behemoth metadirectory with it's huge datastore and intricate synchronization schedule (yet is never quite up to date) are just not the right model for the nimble, agile world of today's service driven computing. But the “bus” Kim mentions could be a good analogy here – the metadirectory is a lumbering, diesel-spewing bus. The virtual directory? It's a zippy little Prius…\u00a0 [Full article here<\/a>]<\/small><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who would want to get in the way of Dave's metaphors?\u00a0 He's on a streak.\u00a0\u00a0But he's making a fundamental mistake, taking\u00a0an extreme\u00a0position that is uncharacteristically naive.\u00a0 I hope he'll rethink it.<\/p>\n

Applications drive infrastructure<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here's the problem.\u00a0 Infrastructure people cannot dictate\u00a0how application developers should build their applications.\u00a0 Applications – providing human and business value – drive infrastructure, not the other way around.\u00a0\u00a0Infrastructure people who don't get this are doomed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dave's neat little story about web service query needs to be put in the crucible of application development.\u00a0 We need to get real.<\/p>\n

Telling\u00a0application developers how to live<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Real-time query\u00a0across web services solves some identity problems very well.\u00a0 In these cases, application developers will be happy to use them.\u00a0 But\u00a0it doesn't solve all their identity needs, or even most of them.\u00a0\u00a0When Dave Kearns\u00a0starts to\u00a0tell real live application developers they\u00a0shouldn't put identity information in their databases, they'll tell him to take his zippy Prius and shove off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Application developers like to use databases and tables.\u00a0 They have become expert at doing joins across tables and objects to produce quite magical results.\u00a0\u00a0As people and things\u00a0become truly first class objects in our applications, developers will want even more to include them in their databases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Think for a minute about the kinds of queries you need to do when you start building enterprise social networks.\u00a0\u00a0“Show me all\u00a0the friends of friends who work\u00a0in a class of projects similar to the ones I work in…”\u00a0 You need to do joins, eh?\u00a0 So it's not just existing enterprise applications that have\u00a0the need to support distributed storage\u00a0– it's the emerging ones too.<\/p>\n

Even\u00a0thinking\u00a0for a moment just\u00a0about Microsoft\u00a0applications – SharePoint provides a good example\u00a0 – the developers\u00a0ran into\u00a0the need to maintain local tables so they can\u00a0get the kind of performance and complex query they need.\u00a0 Virtual directory doesn't help them one iota\u00a0in solving\u00a0this kind of problem.\u00a0 Nor do web service queries.<\/p>\n

Betting big time\u00a0against the house<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

I admire many aspects of Dave's thinking\u00a0about identity.\u00a0 But I pity anyone who follows his really\u00a0ideological argument that virtual directory solves everything and distributed storage just isn't needed.\u00a0 We need both.<\/p>\n

He's asking readers to bet against databases.\u00a0 He's asking them to bet against the programming model used by application developers.\u00a0 He's asking them to forget about performance.\u00a0 He's asking them to take all the use cases in the world and stuff them into his Prius – which is actually more like a hobby horse than a car.<\/p>\n

Once you have identity data distributed across stores you either have chaos or you have metadirectory.\u00a0 I'll explore this more in upcoming posts.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to bet against the future of databases and integration of identity information into them, drop me a note and I'll set up a page to take your money.\u00a0 And at the same time, I recommend that you start training for a second career.<\/p>\n

This said, I'm as strong a believer in using web services to query for claims in real time as Dave is.\u00a0 So on that we very much agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once you have identity data distributed across stores you either have chaos or you have metadirectory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37,8,58],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}