Traditionally, the data source is one of the main components of an ODBC installation. Physically, data sources consist of sets of data and their associated environments. This means that the term data source actually indicates the data files, the operating system, the file system or RDBMS used to manage the physical data, and the optional network software used to access this data. The term data source name (DSN), therefore, refers to something rather complicated.
Because part of the ODBC mission is to hide the complexity of underlying software, ODBC architects have chosen to use an abstract name to identify all the components of a data source. This data source name maps all the underlying software components necessary to access the data.
The name you assign to a data source is arbitrary. However, when users try to access the data files, they will be asked to specify the DSN. Therefore, you should assign a meaningful name that represents the type of data that the files contain or the type of query that will be made against the files.
This section describes how to create local data source names (or DSNs) for your COBOL data files.
You begin by adding the Micro Focus XDBC driver on the ODBC Data Source Administrator of the Windows control panel. (The ODBC Data Source Administrator, included as part of your operating system, is your interface for adding, removing, or configuring ODBC data sources on your system.) Once you add a driver, you define the data source name and configuration file through the Micro Focus XDBC Setup screen.