Directory services is becoming a very important component of enterprise infrastructure and is often used as a centralized storage for corporate identities. Most SSO and IDM software require LDAP either to store identities or policies and their related information.

The existing mix of directory and database technology fails to resolve issues that arise when organizations roll out applications to different types of users (employees, contractors, clients). Today's directory server technology forces building a single, managed data infrastructure that requires huge political discussions on: what data it should contain, who will manage it, and more importantly, who will fund it. Issues such as who should pay for directories and who should manage them become critical factors that affect the success of deploying what should be relatively simple database technology.

The new trends of business-to-business web services and inter-business applications now means that the data sources belonging to external partners must be considered in the creation of a directory services and security infrastructure strategy.