I want to centralize user authentication

Right now it is just a simple environment consisting of a small number of CentOS boxes, but I would like to set up central user authentication to make things easier, especially as we expand (I've already budgeted to triple our local infrastructure and we will be also expanding geographically to multiple regions internationally at some point next year).

Years ago, I remember NIS or NIS+ being the easiest thing in a pure Linux environment, but after some googling I'm finding that Open LDAP has replace it as the sort of "go to" for central user authentication in Linux?

Just wanted to see what other's opinions are, is there a particular "brand" of LDAP software that is preferred, or used more than others? Looking through the LDAP entry on Wikipedia I see quiet a lot of choices for server software, such as OpenLDAP, FreeIPA, 389 Directory server, etc etc.

Any/all opinions are welcome, I come from a primarily Microsoft background so I'm not used to having choices

Hi,
NIS is dead. I looked at a lot of different versions of ldap. They are more or less the same. I would try OpenLDAP or 389 Directory to learn the basics They both have a lot of good documentation.
Try this link for OpenLDAP
LDAP-based authentication for Samba

For videos, I would look at the Urban Penguin. He has a youtub channel and on a few of his videos, he shows you step by step how to set up LDAP.

I hope this helps
TheUrbanPenguin Linux Training