MicroStrategy 7 Administrator Guide

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Every database has a catalog and some database servers keep a set of system
tables for each database.
The basic structure of a database looks like this:
Database Server
Databases
Catalog
Tables
Database structure
Communicating with databases
ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) is the standard method of communicating
with database servers. MicroStrategy Intelligence Server uses ODBC to connect
to and communicate with all database servers in the system. There are four pieces
to an ODBC connection:
• Data source name: A data source name (DSN) stores all of the necessary
information for locating and logging into a database. A DSN generally includes
such information as host machine name or IP address, instance name, and
database name. The exact information included in a DSN varies depending on
the type of database server.
• ODBC driver: An ODBC driver is a type of software that translates
information between the client application (MicroStrategy Intelligence Server)
and the database server API. Database servers “speak” through different APIs;
Informix database servers use one API (Informix CLI), ORACLE database
servers use a different API (Oracle SQL*Net), Sybase database servers use
another, and so on.
• Connection string: A connection string stores the information required to
connect to a database server. A connection string usually includes a DSN and
the user ID and password required to log in to the database server. This
information varies depending on the particular database server.
10 Chapter 2 Database Connectivity