Oracle^® Business Intelligence Disconnected Analytics Administration and Configuration Guide > Overview of Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics > About Oracle BI Disconnected Analytics >

Distinguishing Between the Disconnected and the Network Environments

The Oracle Business Intelligence environment on the disconnected machine (typically a laptop) is a logical equivalent to the Oracle Business Intelligence environment running on an Oracle BI Server. However, the disconnected environment has been scaled down for a single user. The laptop contains its own data stored in a SQL Anywhere database. It contains a fully functional Oracle BI Server that accesses a repository, and a fully functional Oracle BI Presentation Services that accesses a local Oracle BI Presentation Catalog.

The following is a list of some of the primary differences between the disconnected and network environments:

• Data. The data in the disconnected SQL Anywhere database accessed by the disconnected application ultimately comes from the network application (through sourcing queries). However, its size is usually reduced using filtering and aggregation.
• Repository. Typically, the disconnected repository is much smaller than the repository on the server, but it can contain new metadata specially designed for the disconnected application. Therefore, the disconnected repository is not a strictly-defined, proper subset of the server repository.
• Oracle BI Presentation Catalog. Similarly, the local Oracle BI Presentation Catalog is typically much smaller than the full Oracle BI Presentation Catalog. However, it too can contain local customizations such as new dashboards and queries (reports) specifically for the disconnected application.

  NOTE:  Sourcing queries (reports) are not the same as standard reports that are displayed on Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards. The purpose of the sourcing query is only to populate data on a disconnected machine.