NFS and Samba benefit from the use of consistent UIDs and GIDs. As a result, NIS/NIS+ should be used to centralize and synchronize such IDs. However, NIS/NIS+ is not a particularly secure protocol. If sensitive data is stored in the network, or any host in the network cannot be trusted, then NIS/NIS+ should be avoided.
The advantage of NIS/NIS+ is the ease of installation and configuration. It does not require the use of PAM. And, for the most part, the “usual” files /etc/passwd and etc. still perform the same functions.
For a large network, even if security is not a primary concern, NIS/NIS+ should still be avoided because this mechanism is not efficient.