Spring ldap is built on the same principles as the jdbctemplate in spring jdbc. it completely eliminates the need to worry about creating and closing ldapcontext and looping through namingenumeration. it also provides a more comprehensive unchecked exception hierarchy, built on spring's dataaccessexception. as a bonus, it also contains classes for dynamically building ldap filters and dns (distinguished names), ldap attribute management, and client-side ldap transaction management.