| Acustomer stumbling upon this book in a bookstore might ask, “Why is a book on directories and security is so important?”
The Internet is connecting enterprises into a global economy, and the interaction of directories is critical to the success of the New Economy. Consider, for example, Internet commerce in the United States. According to a January, 2002 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project (http://www.pewinternet.org), overall, 29 million American shoppers bought gifts online during the 2001 holiday season, spending an average of $392, up from $330 last year. A quarter of all U.S. Internet users did some of their buying online this year, versus a fifth of them last year. If Web-based retailers could not offer secure Web Services, then consumers would not feel safe on the Internet. As with any venture, security is as important as the venture itself. In order to communicate with the outside world, a company may need to securely publish part of their directory. This has certain risks and benefits: If a company’s directory structure were compromised, the entire enterprise could be at risk.
Today, we live in a world of Internet technologies: messaging services, e-business enterprises, business-to-business value chain integrations, and now Web Services. The state-of-the-art value chain is now executed through both intranets and extranets. More and more of most companies’ internal employee support systems (employee-initiated activities, such as registering for the company medical package, making a change to a personnel record, requesting help, etc.) are based on Internet technologies. |
