About DSDE

[This documentation is preliminary and subject to change.]

Directory Services Data Exchange (DSDE) is a command-line utility, similar to LDIFDE, which enables users to import and export objects to and from directory services.

The primary purpose of DSDE is to perform directory data exchanges. DSDE works with any server that is compliant with LDAP version 3. DSDE also works with Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) Services for Windows, which is the Microsoft implementation of the DSML Version 2 (V2) standard. DSDE uses DSML V2 for its import and export file format.

DSDE is an extensible tool that can accommodate future protocols.

For information about the architecture, see DSDE Architecture.