Understanding a Data Source Description

ibi™ WebFOCUS® products provide a flexible data description language, which you can use with many types of data sources, including:

  • Relational, such as DB2, Oracle, Sybase, and Teradata.
  • Hierarchical, such as IMS, FOCUS®, and XFOCUS.
  • Network, such as CA-IDMS.
  • Indexed, such as ISAM and VSAM.
  • Sequential, both fixed-format and free-format.
  • Multidimensional, such as Essbase.

You can also use the data description language and related facilities to:

  • Join different types of data sources to create a temporary structure from which your request can read or write.
  • Define a subset of fields or columns to be available to users.
  • Logically rearrange a data source to access the data in a different order.