In Telef\'{o}nica we have a very slow ldap server which takes 5 seconds to respond. Even with the configurable caching, addingg an option to pull the administrative database from a local file if specifed.
incubator/tashi/trunk/etc/TashiDefaults.cfg
incubator/tashi/trunk/src/tashi/clustermanager/data/getentoverride.py