Net::LDAP Performance?

[<fh...@ts...>]

I have a module that currently performs LDAP operations by forking
iPlanet/Netscape Directory server commands through the use of backticks. We
have noticed in situations when retrieving all entries from the LDAP server
that this is fairly slow (15 to 20 seconds). In order to try and remedy
this situation, I have now tried to various implementations using "native"
LDAP communications such as Net::LDAP and Mozilla's PerLDAP. What I found
surprised me to some extent. I believed that our greatest bottle neck was
the fork call to the server command, and in single userid searches , both
native methods to calling the LDAP information were faster. Net::LDAP
outperformed PerLDAP. In the case of multiple entries though, the native
methods were slower in both Net::LDAP and Mozilla. While mod_perl is not an
option for me at this time. Are there other ways to optimize searches which
could improve performance?

Fred Hirsch
Toronto Stock Exchange