MicroStrategy 7 Administrator Guide

• ODBC driver manager: The ODBC driver manager coordinates
communication between a client application and database server. The client
application tells the driver manager that it needs to connect using a particular
connection string. The DSN found in this connection string provides the driver
manager with the type of database server to which the application needs access.
From this information, the driver manager decides what driver to use and
initiates the communication.
MicroStrategy software uses ODBC to access different types of databases like
this:
C
O
N
C
E
P
T
S
MicroStrategy Software
ODBC Driver
Manager
Database server
driver 1
Database server
API 1
Database server 1
Database server
driver 2
Database server
API 2
Database server 2
Database
Database
Database
Database
ODBC
Centralized database access control
All database connectivity is handled by MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, which
provides centralized control of database access. The advantages of centralized
control include:
• Connectionless client: All connections to databases in the system are made
through MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. This means that only the
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server machine needs to have database
connectivity. It also eliminates the need to rely on identically configured
connections on client and server machines. This makes it easy to set up, deploy,
and manage large systems.
• Connection caching: Connecting to and disconnecting from databases incurs a
small amount of overhead that may cause a small yet noticeable decrease in
performance in high-concurrency systems. With connection caching,
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server is able to reuse database connections. This
minimizes the overhead associated with repeated connecting to and
disconnecting from databases.
Centralized database access control 11