1. A computer-implemented method for providing an object responsive to receiving a Web services protocol request message from an entity over a network, the Web services protocol for accessing resources represented using extensible markup language (XML), the method comprising: accessing a first representation of an object in a directory, the first representation of the object being organized in accordance with a hierarchical data model; generating a second representation of the object based on at least the first representation of the object, the second representation of the object being organized in accordance with an XML data model in a first XML namespace, by at least generating a first XML element that represents a most derived structural object class associated with the first representation of the object, and generating one or more second XML elements nested within the first XML element, each of the one or more second XML elements naming a respective attribute associated with the first representation of the object; generating an XML element corresponding to each of one or more synthetic attributes associated with the object that are not included within the first representation of the object, wherein the one or more synthetic attributes have names that are in a different XML namespace than the first XML namespace, and wherein at least one of the one or more synthetic attributes comprises an object reference property of a parent object of the object in the directory, the object reference property comprising an Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) distinguished name of the parent of the object; and transmitting a Web services protocol response message including the second representation of the object to the entity over the network; wherein the Web services protocol request message comprises one of: a Web Services Transfer (WS-Transfer) Get request message; a Web Services Transfer (WS-Transfer) Put request message; and a Web Services Transfer (WS-Transfer) Create request message.