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The Most Complete History of Directory Services You Will Ever Find
Directory Services Timeline
The Most Complete History of Directory Services You Will Ever Find
(Until the next one comes along)
Date | Event |
Source |
1969 | First Arpanet node comes online; first RFC published. | |
1973 | Ethernet invented by Xerox PARC researchers. | |
1982 | TCP/IP replaces older Arpanet protocols on the Internet. | |
1982 | First distributed computing research paper on Grapevine published by Xerox PARC researchers. | |
1984 | Internet DNS comes online. | |
1986 | IETF formally chartered. | |
1989 | Quipu (X.500 software package) released. | |
1990 | Estimated number of Internet hosts exceeds 250,000. | |
1990 | First version of the X.500 standard published. | |
1991 | A team at CERN headed by Tim Berners-Lee releases the first World Wide Web software. | |
1992 | University of Michigan developers release the first LDAP software. | |
1993 | NDS debuts in Netware 4.0. | |
July 1993 | LDAP specification first published as RFC 1487. | |
December 1995 | First standalone LDAP server (SLAPD) ships as part of U-M LDAP 3.2 release. | |
April 1996 | Consortium of more than 40 leading software vendors endorses LDAP as the Internet directory service protocol of choice. | |
1996 | Netscape Hires Tim Howes, Mark Smith, and Gordon Good from University of Michigan. Howes serves as a directory server architect. | |
September 1997 | Sun Microsystems releases Sun Directory Services 1.0, derived from U-M LDAP 3.2 |
3 |
November 1997 | LDAPv3 named the winner of the PC Magazine Award for Technical Excellence. | |
December 1997 | LDAPv3 approved as a proposed Internet Standard. | |
1998 | The OpenLDAP Project was started by Kurt Zeilenga. The project started by cloning the LDAP reference source from the University Of Michigan. | |
January 1998 | Netscape ships the first commercial LDAPv3 directory server. | |
March 1998 | Innosoft acquires Mark Walh’s Critical Angle company, relesases LDAP directory server product 4.1 one month later. | |
July 1998 | Sun Microsystems ships Sun Directory Server 3.1, implementing LDAPv3 standards |
3 |
July 1998 | Estimated number of Internet hosts exceeds 36 million. | |
1999 | AOL acquires Netscape and forms the iPlanet Alliance with Sun Microsystems. | |
March 1999 | Innosoft team, led by Mark Wahl, releases Innosoft Distributed Directory Server 5.0 |
3 |
March 2000 | Sun Microsystems acquires Innosoft, merges Innosoft directory code with iPlanet. This forms the foundation for the iPlanet Directory Access Router. |
3 |
October 2001 | The iPlanet Alliance ends and Sun and Netscape fork the codebase. | |
October 2004 | Apache Directory Server Top Level Project is formed after 1 year in incubation |
3 |
December 2004 | RedHat Purchases Netscape Server products | |
2005 | Sun Microsystems initiates the OpenDS project. An open source directory server based on the Java platform. | |
June 2005 | RedHat Releases Fedora Directory Server | |
October 2006 | Apache Directory Server 1.0 is released |
3 |
2007 | UnboundID releases its directory server |
12 |
2008 | AOL Stops Supporting Netscape Products | |
April 2009 | Oracle purchases Sun Microsystems | |
May 2009 | RedHat changes the Fedora Directory Server to 389 Directory Server | |
Feb 1, 2010 | ForgeRock is founded |
3 |
Dec 2010 | ForgeRock releases OpenDJ | |
July 2011 | Oracle releases Oracle Unified Directory |
Sources:
(1) Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services; Second Edition; Timothy A. Howes, Ph.D., Mark C. Smith, and Gordon S. Good.
(2) 389 Directory Server; History (http://directory.fedoraproject.org/wiki/History).
(3) Email exchange with Ludovic Poitou (ForgeRock).
(4) Press Release, March 16th, 1998; “Innosoft Acquires LDAP Technology Leader Critical Angle Inc. (http://www.pmdf.process.com/press/critical-angle-acquire.html).
(5) OpenLDAP; Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLDAP).
(6) iPlanet; Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPlanet).
(7) OpenDS; Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDS).
(8) Netscape; Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape).
(9) Press Release, April 20th, 2000; “Oracle Buys Sun” (http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/018363).
(10) 389 Directory Server; 389 Change FAQ (http://directory.fedoraproject.org/wiki/389_Change_FAQ).
(11) OpenDJ; Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDJ).
(12) Email exchange with Nick Crown (UnboundID).
(13) Press Release, July 20th, 2011; “Oracle Announces Oracle Unified Directory 11g” (http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/434211).