Data servers
A data server defines the physical connection to a database or a cube.
A data server connection specifies the parameters that are needed to connect to the database or cube, such as the location of the database and the timeout duration. Authentication information can also be included in the connection.
IBM® Cognos® Analytics supports multiple relational and OLAP data servers. The list of supported data server types might change from release to release. For information about the currently supported types, see the Supported Software Environments (www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ibm10735235) website.
If you include database authentication information, such as the Cognos Analytics credentials or a signon, for the connection, users need not enter database authentication information each time the connection is used. The signon that is produced when you create a data server connection is by default available to the Everyone group. You can modify the signon permissions from the properties of the data server connection.
Data server versus data source
In the legacy IBM Cognos Administration user interface, the equivalent of Data server is Data source that has the JDBC connection specified.
Data sources do not appear in until you enable web-based modeling for the data source connections. To do that, go to , and select the Allow web-based modeling check box on the connections. Only data sources with JDBC connections have this check box.