More Under-the-Hood Changes
In addition to retiring NetInfo, Apple has consolidated the functions of three of the remaining directory services daemons (lookupd, memberd, and Directory Service) into a single Directory Service daemon in an effort to simplify directory services related procedure calls.
These changes result in a leaner form of Open Directory that requires fewer queries to retrieve information and fewer running processes.
As a result, Open Directory now requires less system resource and performs faster. Although a significant change, the results are essentially transparent to non-developers.