Basic concepts of Virtual View Manager
The workflow for using Virtual View Manager is separated into three processes:
 | Setting up the environment by installing and configuring the appropriate software and drivers. The installation also installs IBM Informix® and creates a repository to contain your Virtual View Manager content. |
| Creating a data source using Virtual View Manager Studio, which includes accessing and simplifying the metadata using Virtual View Manager Server. |
| Accessing Virtual View Manager views using IBM Cognos 8 and preparing metadata for reporting in IBM Cognos 8. |
Virtual View Manager Server can be installed in the same environment as Cognos 8, but an installation on a separate computer gives better performance and availability. The installation creates a Virtual View Manager repository and starts both the Virtual View Manager process and the Virtual View Manager Server.
Because IBM Cognos 8 uses the Virtual View Manager ODBC driver to access Virtual View Manager data sources, the ODBC driver and driver manager must be installed on each instance of the IBM Cognos 8 report server and the Framework Manager. The driver manager routes all IBM Cognos 8 requests to the appropriate ODBC driver to access the data sources. When you add an ODBC Data Source Name (DSN) using the ODBC Data Source Administrator, you identify an ODBC driver for the driver manager. The driver manager then knows that the data source associated with this DSN is accessed through a particular ODBC driver.
