[CentOS] Remote identity management

Hi,

Until now, I've only managed local user management on small network with 
no more than five or six machines, e. g. all user data stored locally on 
each and every machine (/etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group). Now I'd 
like to learn remote identity management, that is, all user data stored 
centrally on one machine (so I don't have to wonder who has which UID 
and GID when I want to setup an NFS share, for example).

I understand there are several ways to achieve that with RHEL/CentOS: 
NIS, LDAP, Kerberos, SMB, ...

The networks I'll have to deal with are 100% GNU/Linux (better: 100% 
CentOS). So my first question is: which solution is the "best" for such 
a configuration ? By "best" I mean some compromise between "easy" and 
"reliable".

Any suggestions ?

Niki Kovacs