Updated on May 1st, 2017 You can enable user authentication for IBM® FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R for use with Microsoft Windows Active Directory (AD). AD is Microsoft Windows implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). The benefits of an LDAP-based centralized user management can be substantial when you consider the size and complexity of the overall IT environment. Maintaining local user credential repositories is straightforward and convenient when you work with only a few users and a few storage systems. However, as the number of users and interconnected systems grows, the complexity of user account management rapidly increases, and managing this environment is time-consuming. This IBM RedpaperTM publication explores various benefits of this approach. Although the benefits from using AD are significant, you must also evaluate the substantial planning effort and added complexity of deploying an LDAP infrastructure if it is not already in place.