Editing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (section)

==Other data models==
As LDAP has gained momentum, vendors have provided it as an access protocol to other services.  The implementation then recasts the data to mimic the LDAP/X.500 model, but how closely this model is followed varies.  For example, there is software to access [[SQL]] databases through LDAP, even though LDAP does not readily lend itself to this.<ref>[http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin24/backends.html#SQL Openldap.org]</ref> X.500 servers may support LDAP as well.

Similarly, data previously held in other types of data stores are sometimes moved to LDAP directories.  For example, Unix user and group information can be stored in LDAP and accessed via [[Pluggable Authentication Modules|PAM]] and [[Name Service Switch|NSS]] modules.  LDAP is often used by other services for authentication and/or authorization (what actions a given already-authenticated user can do on what service). For example in Active Directory Kerberos is used in the authentication step, while LDAP is used in the authorization step.

An example of such data model is the GLUE Schema,<ref>[https://www.ogf.org/documents/GFD.218.pdf Open Grid Forum : Project Home<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> which is used in a distributed information system based on LDAP that enable users, applications and services to discover which services exist in a Grid infrastructure and further information about their structure and state.