Novell has announced that its Novell Directory Services (NDS), used in conjunction with its flagship Netware software product, is now activated for conventional TCP/IP connections.
Novell said it had embraced the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) that enabled compatible browsers, such as Netscape's Navigator, to access NDS via a regular dial-up Internet connection.
'Novell's support for LDAP is one more way we are making networks smarter,' Vic Langford, senior vice-president of Novell's Internet/Intranet Services Business Unit, said.
'It enables people and applications to easily access information and intelligence stored in NDS over the Internet and intranets. With more than 15 million users, NDS has the largest acceptance of and installed base of any directory service worldwide.
'As the first major vendor to open its directory to the Internet, we are making it easier for developers and users to leverage the NDS resources of that huge installed base.' Novell claims LDAP is emerging as a standard protocol for directory access on the Internet.