D-branes in the background of ns fivebranes

We study the dynamics of D-branes in the near-horizon geometry of NS fivebranes. This leads to a holographically dual description of the physics of D-branes ending on and/or intersecting NS5-branes. We use it to verify some properties of such D-branes which were deduced indirectly in the past, and discuss some instabilities of non-supersymmetric brane configurations. Our construction also describes vacua of Little String Theory which are dual to open plus closed string theory in asymptotically linear dilaton spacetimes.