As mentioned in the preceding section, the Data Source is a conduit to our data. Data Sources are the developer's way to specify where data is located, how to get access to that data, and provide a mechanism to retrieve that data from a data location. Out of the box, BIRT provides six different Data Source types:

We have already seen the Classic Cars Sample database with the Employee Example in Chapter 3. This Data Source is not meant to be a production Data Source, and a report environment would not use in a real world development shop. It is provided as an example Data Source, used as a teaching aid and to demonstrate how an ODA Data Source would function in BIRT. It is also a common Data Source that all BIRT users have access to, so it is useful as a common talking point while explaining features of BIRT and while discussing issues with reports. When using this Data Source, we provide no information as it is all self contained in the Classic Cars Data Source itself. We will use this Data Source in a number of examples throughout this book.