Data repository is a container that is used to store information in an organization.
When dealing with an institution, data repository is referred to data warehousing and it contains present and historical information of an organization. This data is stored in a manner that it can be easily accessed (Marco, 2000). Two types of repositories can be accessed in an organization: directory services and company databases. This paper will compare and contrast the two. Further, the paper will explain what active directory is, what is needed to support it and what factors justify investing in this type of repository.
A directory service is a software system used to store, organize and ensure that information is made accessible in a directory. The size of a directory may vary in size depending on the amount of nodes and data that the software can support. As a result, the repository can be either broad or narrow depending on the amount off data supported. On the other hand, company database is just like the directly service only that it involves a complex procedure of building the repository to be in form of a rational database.
The main idea in the complex process is to enable web or text mining for a company so that such data can be changed to be in a useful form.Both the data repository methods mentioned is aimed to make the process of analyzing data in an organization easy. The two methods have similar components that assist in data processing (Marco, 2000). Examples of such features are decision support system and data mining. The two features enable the processing of data to be a simple exercise since it is expected that the amount of data stored in repositories may rise. As an organization grows, so does the data, this implies that data may grow in an exponential rate making it hard for an organization to hand it (Cox, 2001).
Partitioning of data repositories is one of the methods used to handle the large volumes of data in an organization. Both directory and database services require that the data stored in them be partitioned in order to make the data easily accessible. This is because, when all the data is stored without being classified into several repositories, it may be difficult to sort out the data (Cox, 2001). However, there are some few differences in the manner in which data can be accessed from the two repositories. A directory service for instance, names of networks are mapped to the corresponding network address.
As a result, a user of this repository can be able to access data with only the name of a network and no need to the physical address of the network. Information concerning a resource is stored as an attribute of the object. Such information is made secure since only it can only be accessed by those people who have permission to do so (Smith, et al, 2003). On the other hand, data stored in a data base can be distributed to many servers. This makes any information to be accessible in many computers instead of such data being stored in a single computer.
Active directoryThis is a form of repository created by Microsoft to provide many network services. This enables administrators of organizations to control data in large areas depending on the number of computers connected to the main server. This implies that the repository can be used to manage data in large organizations. In this case objects are grouped into two major classes; resources and security principals. The security principals are assigned specific security identifiers in order to control the access or determine the security of a repository.
