Microsoft's new DSML Services for Windows opens up ways to build directory-enabled applications.

Need to manage Active Directory over the Web? Can't fathom LDAPv3 query syntax? Want to grant other organizations limited access to your organization's directory? Considering directory-enabled applications for PDAs or cellphones? If your answer to any of these questions is "Yes" or even "Maybe," give Microsoft's new DSML Services for Windows (DSfW) Beta 1 a try (see Resources). DSfW provides a SOAP binding for Directory Services Markup Language version 2 (DSMLv2), which the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) membership approved on April 30, 2002.


I'll take you on a test-drive of DSMLv2 and DSfW Beta 1, showing you how to configure DSfW, test Microsoft's sample queries, protect Active Directory with a DSfW Web service wrapper, and allow users to customize their AD searches.

Bowstreet originated DSML as an XML dialect for describing the structure and contents of directories conforming to the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol version 3 (LDAPv3) standard (see Resources). DSML 1.0 gained support from IBM, iPlanet (then called the "Sun-Netscape Alliance"), Microsoft, Novell, and Oracle. The six organizations—then known as DSML.org—turned over the DSML 1.0 specification draft to OASIS in December 1999, where it languished in technical committee (TC) obscurity. The last update to DSML 1.0 occurred in December 1999. The fundamental problem with DSML 1.0 was its lack of ability to perform directory query and update operations.

DSML activity heated up in July 2001 after Access360, iPlanet, Microsoft, Novell, and VeriSign submitted recommendations for an upgrade of DSML. The OASIS Directory Services TC adopted Microsoft's proposal (see Resources)—with minor modifications—for DSMLv2. DSMLv2 represents LDAP directory operations and their results by XML request/response operations. DSMLv2 specifies SOAP and file bindings. As you'd expect, DSfW supports only the SOAP binding and requires installation of at least the .NET Framework Runtime on a Windows 2000+ machine that's a member of an AD domain and runs IIS 5.0.

DSMLv2's XSD schema (see Resources) defines a request message, which usually contains zero or more (query), (update), (insert), or (delete) elements. Executing the request returns a message, which contains a , , or element for each request element. The default positional correspondence processing method assures that the response elements appear in the same order as the request elements.

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