LDAP is necessary once the app moves to the production environment. For example in a native application the user can't make a synchronize call if the user don't have admin role ( You can't make sync when you are creating a user in SCC under application connections, now you may be doing it using the user supAdmin from your native app or by creating a user for SCC with admin roles.).
You can find information here regarding the configuration,
http://scn.sap.com/thread/3203254