Discovery Concepts
This section introduces key Discovery concepts.
What Is a Model?
A Discovery model is an object that contains resource definitions, view definitions, and diagrams that show their relationships: a model diagram that shows tables/keys/columns and relationships and a cross schema diagram that shows the relationships between schemas.
What Is a View?
A TDV view is a SQL statement that defines the data to retrieve from one or more underlying data sources. Discovery lets you automatically generate a view based on a model that contains discovered relationships within and across data sources. You can then use Studio and its graphical SQL Editor to refine the SQL views.
What Is a Data Source?
A data source is a structured data application such as a database, data warehouse, or packaged software application. Discovery supports most data sources that TDV supports.
What Is an Index?
An index is an internal mapping that helps retrieve data faster. Discovery indexes data sources to optimize them for relationship discovery.
What Is a Relationship in Discovery?
A relationship is a probable relationship between data in different table columns, based on data values and metadata. A relationship can be:
• Discovered—The relationship is based on the metadata defining a table column and is automatically determined by Discovery.
• User-defined—The relationship is defined by the Discovery Administrator.
• Foreign key—The relationship is determined by Discovery based on a foreign key defined for the tables.
The estimated validity of a relationship is indicated by a Relationship Probability Score (RPS), expressed as a percentage value.