Technology is disclosed for supporting the use of multiple access mechanisms for accessing one or more data stores. Examples of access mechanisms include the LDAP protocol and the ADSI protocol. One embodiment of the present invention includes maintaining an association of access mechanisms to types of data store operations such that two or more types of data store operations for a first data store can be associated with different access mechanisms. The system receives a first operation for the first data store, where the first operation is of a first type of data store operation. The system accesses the first data store to perform the first operation using an access mechanism associated with the first type of data store operation.