LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a protocol that helps users find data about organizations, persons, and more. It is a vendor-neutral software protocol used to lookup information or devices within a network. LDAP has two main goals: to store data in the LDAP directory and to provide a central location for accessing and managing directory services. The most common use of LDAP is to provide a central place for authentication, meaning it stores usernames and passwords. LDAP can then be used in different applications or services to validate users with a plugin. LDAP is widely used to build central authentication servers, which contain usernames and passwords for all the users within a network. Any-and-all applications and services can connect to the LDAP server to authenticate and authorize users. LDAP is also used to add operations into a directory server database, authenticate sessions, delete LDAP entries, search and compare entries using different commands, modify existing entries, extend entries, abandon requests or unbind operations.

In summary, LDAP is used to store, manage, and secure information about the organization, its users, and assets, like usernames and passwords, and to provide a central location for accessing and managing directory services. It is widely used to build central authentication servers and to validate usernames and passwords with different applications or services.