Editing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (section)

==History==
Telecommunication companies' understanding of directory requirements were well developed after some 70 years of producing and managing telephone directories. These companies introduced the concept of directory services to [[information technology]] and [[computer networking]], their input culminating in the comprehensive [[X.500]] specification,<ref>The [[X.500]] series - ITU-T Rec. X.500 to X.521</ref> a suite of protocols produced by the [[International Telecommunication Union]] (ITU) in the 1980s.

X.500 directory services were traditionally accessed via the X.511 Directory Access Protocol (DAP), which required the [[Open Systems Interconnection]] (OSI) [[OSI protocols|protocol stack]]. LDAP was originally intended to be a lightweight alternative protocol for accessing X.500 directory services through the simpler (and now widespread) [[TCP/IP]] protocol stack.  This model of directory access was borrowed from the [[DIXIE]] and [[Directory Assistance Service]] protocols.

The protocol was originally created<ref>{{cite web |last=Howes |first=Tim |url=http://www.openldap.org/pub/umich/ldap.pdf |title=The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol: X.500 Lite |access-date=26 December 2012}}</ref> by [[Tim Howes]] of the [[University of Michigan]], [[Steve Kille]] of Isode Limited, [[Colin Robbins (software engineer)|Colin Robbins]] of [[Nexor]] and [[Wengyik Yeong]] of [[Performance Systems International]], circa 1993, as a successor<ref>{{cite web|title=Pre-History of LDAP|url=http://cybermatters.info/2013/04/09/prehistory-of-ldap/|website=Cyber Matters|access-date=5 October 2014|date=2013-04-09}}</ref> to [[DIXIE]] and [[Directory Assistance Service|DAS]]. Mark Wahl of Critical Angle Inc., Tim Howes, and Steve Kille started work in 1996 on a new version of LDAP, LDAPv3, under the aegis of the [[Internet Engineering Task Force]] (IETF).  LDAPv3, first published in 1997, superseded LDAPv2 and added support for extensibility, integrated the [[Simple Authentication and Security Layer]], and better aligned the protocol to the 1993 edition of X.500. Further development of the LDAPv3 specifications themselves and of numerous extensions adding features to LDAPv3 has come through the [[IETF]].

In the early engineering stages of LDAP, it was known as ''Lightweight Directory Browsing Protocol'', or ''LDBP''.  It was renamed with the expansion of the scope of the protocol beyond directory browsing and searching, to include directory update functions. It was given its ''Lightweight'' name because it was not as network intensive as its DAP predecessor and thus was more easily implemented over the Internet due to its relatively modest bandwidth usage.

LDAP has influenced subsequent Internet protocols, including later versions of X.500, [[XML Enabled Directory]] (XED), [[Directory Service Markup Language]] (DSML), [[Service Provisioning Markup Language]] (SPML), and the [[Service Location Protocol]] (SLP). It is also used as the basis for [[Microsoft]]'s [[Active Directory]].