SAS® Integration Technologies: Administrator's Guide (LDAP Version)

2.
are discussed separately and in more detail in the following two topics, in practice they are examined at the
same time as you are defining your channels. You cannot define an information channel without first knowing
who needs to see the information and how that information should be restricted.
Identify initial subscriptions
When you plan an initial set of information channels, you must identify the users, groups, and applications
that are initially subscribed to those channels. The information to set up these subscriptions is taken from the
information you collected when you planned the channels. An understanding of your organization's need for a
publish and subscribe system must include not only what information needs to be published, but also who
needs to see that information.
However, you do not have to determine every piece of information that every individual needs to see. Rather,
the process of planning initial subscriptions focuses on wider distributions of information, such as identifying
the essential information that departments and groups of users need. How closely you follow this guideline
depends on your organization's needs − there might be a few critical users who need to receive specific
information, and there might be a need to subscribe a group of users to a tightly focused channel. In general,
however, the initial subscriptions that you plan cater to distributing essential information to the largest number
of users. Subscribers can set up subscriptions to tightly focused channels themselves as the need arises.
After you have determined the list of initial subscribers for each channel, you must determine how the
information is to be distributed to each user (whether by text e−mail, HTML e−mail, or through a queue) and
identify their address information. The address information is essential for setting up both subscriber entries
and the LDAP directory.
3. Analyze information security requirements
When you plan information channels you must also consider security for your publish and subscribe
implementation in order to ensure that the information that is published on each planned channel is uniformly
sensitive. For example, if you plan for a single channel to distribute accounting information throughout your
organization, you will encounter a security problem when the accounting department needs to publish
sensitive information (such as employee salaries). With only a single, unrestricted channel, you cannot publish
the information to a specific set of users. In your consultations with users, you must identify information
channels whose access needs to be controlled.
Your plan must address both methods that Integration Technologies uses to implement security −
authentication and access control.
Authentication security involves the process of users connecting to the LDAP server. Because the LDAP
server contains all of the definitions for Integration Technologies objects (including subscribers, channels, and
servers), a user must be able to connect to the LDAP directory in order to make any changes to the LDAP
definitions. This level of security is controlled when users supply a distinguished name and corresponding
password when they connect to the directory.
Access control security controls the information channels that users have access to. Without any security,
users are able to subscribe to any information channel in your organization and access sensitive information.
To prevent this, you must to create access control lists (ACLs) in the LDAP directory in order to specify what
definitions and attributes users have access to. To plan for implementing access control security, you must
consider what kinds of users access the directory and what kinds of information they should have access to.
As an example, the following are some possible user classes and questions you must consider for each one:
General subscriber
SAS® Integration Technologies: Administrator's Guide (LDAP Version)
Administering the Publishing Framework (Publish and Subscribe Planning and Implementation Guide) 209