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The main benefit of using LDAP is the consolidation of certain types of information within your organization. For example, all of the different lists of users within your organization can be merged into one LDAP directory. This directory can be queried by any LDAP-enabled applications that need this information. The directory can also be used by users who need directory information.
Other LDAP benefits include its ease of implementation (compared to X.500), and its well-defined Application Programming Interface (API), which means that the number of LDAP-enabled applications and LDAP gateways should increase in the future.
On the negative side, if you want to use LDAP, you'll need LDAP-enabled applications or you'll need to use LDAP gateways. As mentioned previously, LDAP will only increase in usage, but at present, there aren't a plethora of LDAP-enabled applications available for Linux. Also, while LDAP does support some access control, it does not support as many security features as X.500.