There’s a pretty good introductory article to LDAP in the sys-admin section of O’Reilly Network, entitled “Demystifying LDAP“.
The article introduces the concepts for LDAP and discuss the value of directory servers over databases: open standards for the protocol, open standards for the schema. And also the ease of use.
And if you still consider that deploying a directory server is difficult, wait until Sun Directory Server 6 is released and give it a try.
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Ludo Sketches 
When is this mysterious version 6 release coming out anyway? =)
Directory Server 6 will be released as part of Java ES 5. Targetted for the end of 2006. A private Beta program is currently running for Sun’s customers.
Personally, I’m not too bothered about installation and setup and merits of LDAP as such.
The main problem I have, and everyone I know who has tried LDAP has had, is that the APIs are ugly and painful to use. The available documentation is small, and often looks ancient. And for example, the JNDI module in NetBeans has been suspended due to lack of interest.
Basically, I don’t feel at all motivated to try to use it since not much effort seems to being made (across the industry in general) to make it nice to use by developers. Which is a shame, since it might be a lot better than the alternatives in some cases – I can’t tell for sure since I’ve given up before getting that far. Maybe things have improved since I last looked into it though…
btw, I have used JNDI in production – I took over another person’s project after they left. It was a horrible project in general, and one of the worst bits was the LDAP bits.
PS I’m not at all against improvements in LDAP or blogs about Sun’s LDAP servers. But from a developer’s point of view, it seems to be treated like a niche product that only specialists need to bother with. Please don’t take my rant personally.