Question

what is a data source?

Answer 1

A data source is simply the source of the data. It can be a file, a particular database on a DBMS, or even a live data feed. The data might be located on the same computer as the program, or on another computer somewhere on a network. For example, a data source might be an Oracle DBMS running on an OS/2® operating system, accessed by Novell® Netware; an IBM DB2 DBMS accessed through a gateway; a collection of Xbase files in a server directory; or a local Microsoft® Access database file

Datasource is a name given to the connection set up to a database from a server. The name is commonly used when creating a query to the database. The data source name (DSN) need not be the same as the filename for the database. For example, a database file named friends.mdb could be set up with a DSN of school

Answer 2

Concept of data  source is as follows:

• A data source  is most commonly used in DBMS (Data Base Management System) , or anything related to the term 'data'. It is also referred to as a DSN (Data Source Name).
• A data is basically a location from where the data being used, comes from. Generally is located in a disk or a remote server.
• It can be a data sheet, a spreadsheet, an xml file, or any file that contains relevant data.
• In general, a driver vendor implements the Data Source interface. There can be three types of implementation - Basic implementation, Connection pooling implementation and Distributed transaction implementation.