LDAP, JNDI, and Initial Context relationship

What's the relationship among LDAP, JNDI, and the Initial Context.

My understanding is JND开发者_运维问答I is Java's way of looking up names. LDAP is a protocol which is used to look up names. But I'm not sure about initial context. Is it specific for LDAP or JNDI or none?

If somebody could give me a simple, concrete example, I would appreciate it.

InitialContext is part of the JNDI API. It is basically a bootstrap mechanism.

LDAP is really more than a protocol, it is a database specification too ...