Virtual Directory - Disadvantages

Disadvantages

An original disadvantage is public perception of "push & pull technologies" which is the general classification of "virtual directories" depending on the nature of their deployment. Virtual directories were initially designed and later deployed with "Push technologies" in mind, which also contravened with "Privacy laws" in the USA. This is no longer the case. There are, however, other disadvantages in the current technologies.

• The classical virtual directory based on proxy cannot modify underlying data structures or create new views based on the relationships of data from across multiple systems. So if an application requires a different structure, such as a flattened list of identities, or a deeper hierarchy for delegated administration, a virtual directory is limited.
• Many virtual directories cannot to correlate same-users across multiple diverse sources in the case of duplicate users
• Virtual directories without advanced caching technologies cannot scale to heterogeneous, high-volume environments.