Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway
From: atkins@hpindqj.cup.hp.COM (Brian Atkins)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400
Subject: Re: X.500 name-space question
Message-ID: <9101102208.AA14979@hpindqj.cup.hp.com>
Date: 10 Jan 91 22:21:02 GMT
Lines: 27
Approved: usenet@ICS.UCI.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 10 Jan 91 11:47:07 PST."
             <4049.663536827@nma>

Hola' Stef,

Glad to see you're still keeping you hand in the standards, are you still
attending the X.400 SIG?  (If you remember, I represented a company called
NBI there a few years back, around the same time Jody Reed and Tim Bishop
were there).

One thing we have looked at here at HP is using alias trees to provide
multiple lookup paradigms.  Continuing along my example with HP,
an alias could be set up allowing references to /C=FR/O=HP to go
to /C=US/O=HP-FR or /C=US/O=HP;L=FR or whatever the breakdown under
HP is.  Except the for alias entries themselves, the HP subtree is still
consolidated under one root.

Such an alias tree can even be used to provide a different lookup
tree allowing faster access than search, for example by phone number.
The top level node could be country code, then area code, then prefix,
then extension.  The leaf node would be an alias to the real entry
which may have its DN constrained by something else, like the organizational
structure of the entity of which it's a part.

Brian

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Brian Atkins            atkins@hpindqj.HP.COM       (408) 447-2057
Information Networks Division   -   43LS
Hewlett Packard         19420 Homestead Road, Cupertino, CA  95014