Directories and X.500:
Government Electronic
Directory Services
(GEDS)

April 4, 1997

1. Introduction

This is the second Network Notes in the "Directories and X.500" series.

Although the international X.500 directory standard was first released in 1988, and the National Library of Canada (NLC) was working on several X.500 directory projects in the early 1990s, it was not until late 1996 that an X.500 directory became available for regular use at the Library. At that time, LAN administrators in the Library installed the files and added an icon to the standard Windows desktop which gave staff access to GEDS, the Government Electronic Directory Services, via Web500 offered by Publiservice, the Government of Canada's Intranet service for federal employees.

The GEDS electronic directory is a combination of two directory services managed by GTIS, the Government Telecommunications and Informatics Services:

1. the Email Address Exchange Service (EMAS), which provides the X.400 addresses of more than 160 000 public servants, and

2. the Government of Canada telephone directories.

2. The X.500 Standard

GEDS is the Canadian federal government implementation of the X.500 directory standard. ¹ It was built by GTIS with the assistance of the system integrator, ISM Inc., on the Siemens Nixdorf corporate directory suite of software, Dir.X. Gradual implementation of the system began in the fiscal year 1996/97. Work is still in progress.

Typical of X.500 implementation, GEDS replicates the White and Yellow Pages of printed telephone directories, the White Pages providing information by name, and the Yellow Pages providing access by service. This illustrates the great influence of the international telecom agencies in the design of the X.500 standard.

In addition to the type of access available in the printed telephone directory (e.g., finding phone numbers by looking up a person's name or browsing through the listing for a government department), GEDS provides new ways to retrieve directory information, including the following search terms:

• an approximate name, (useful for determining whether someone is a "MacDonald" or a "McDonald")

• the telephone number ² (solving the mystery of the person behind an unfamiliar phone number)

• the position title (useful to answer questions such as "Who are the directors general of the National Library?")

Some applications, such as e-mail management tools, use the GEDS directory for basically the same purposes that people do -- to look up electronic mail addresses, physical locations or postal address information. In the future, GEDS will also be used to store authentication information, such as the public encryption keys to be used in the Government of Canada Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), a central database of information for Canadian federal government employees which will provide secure departmental information management and electronic commerce transactions. ³

3. Benefits of GEDS

3.1 Cost reductions

With production costs increasing dramatically and the large subsidy allocated for the printed government telephone directory being reduced substantially, GTIS has taken advantage of improved access to the GEDS online directory and has implemented a new pricing structure that encourages departments to access it via Web500. For GTIS, this means a cost saving, not only because fewer printed directories are now produced, but also because GTIS has been able to reduce the heavy subsidies needed for the printed directory significantly.

3.2 Centralized access

GEDS provides centralized access to telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and other directory information for individuals and organizations within the Government of Canada.

3.3 Current information

The GEDS directory can be updated much more easily than a printed directory. Updating can be continuous, rather than waiting for annual or less frequent reissues of the printed directory. (When fully operational, bi-weekly updates to the X.500 directory are likely.)

3.4 Distributed maintenance

Using Update 500, a customized software for updating the GEDS directory, the responsibility for keeping the directory information current can be distributed to departmental telecommunications officers. They can "clone" the data, making it possible for individual government departments to manage data in their own segments of the central X.500 database.

Government departments have two maintenance options:

1. to produce internal departmental directories and then transfer data to the central X.500 directory, or

2. to develop and maintain a separate departmental X.500 Directory System Agent (DSA) that is integrated with the government-wide X.500 directory service.

The National Library is currently using the first option.

4. Is GEDS Working?

Some critics say that the Canadian government has taken too long to implement this directory service, because too much time was spent reaching agreement on the design of the directory schema (i.e., which data elements to use and how they are structured). However, the database is now populated with information from existing departmental directories and is widely available to government employees.

Since Web access to GEDS via the LAN has been provided at the National Library, considerably fewer paper copies have been needed. The added incentive of a substantial price increase for the printed directory has accelerated the move to GEDS.

Although shared maintenance procedures that will improve the timeliness and completeness of the directory data are still evolving, there is early evidence not of a reduction but rather a redirection of work. Telecom officers at the Library now update directory information in one place instead of four, but must spend more time collecting and adding the additional information required for the new directory.

An early critic of the X.500 standard warned that the value of an electronic directory is only as good as its accuracy. Although sophisticated hardware and software may be used to build an X.500 directory, populating it with data that is timely, accurate and secure is a more complex problem, as is ensuring the integrity expected of such a database. Currently, names and phone numbers may appear in GEDS, but the inclusion of e-mail addresses is spotty, and position titles are not always accurate. Duplicate names and records turn up frequently. These may be indications that some departments, perhaps frustrated by earlier failures of attempts at centralized directory-data management, are now contributing incomplete information or lack the departmental procedures to update obsolete information. Ultimately, the value of GEDS will depend on the commitment of the federal departments and agencies that are contributing to the database to keep it current. The suite of sophisticated X.500 software only provides the tools to make this activity easier.

5. Final Note

So far, most X.500 implementations have been for White Pages directories. How practical is this standard for other library directories? The third Network Notes in this series will explore potential uses of the X.500 directory standard in libraries.

2. The Library's Telecommunications Officer cautions that for successful retrieval with this search term, the telephone area code must be included.

3. Read more about PKI at: http://www.cse.dnd.ca/PKI/gocpki_e.htm