# About ColdFusion Data Sources

For ColdFusion developers, the term "data source" can refer to a number of different types of structured content accessible locally or across a network. You can query Web sites, LDAP servers, POP mail servers, and documents in a variety of formats.

Most commonly though, a database will drive your applications and for this discussion a data source is defined as the entry point for database operations.

Before you can access a database with a ColdFusion application, you must configure the database as a ColdFusion data source. You do this using the ColdFusion Administrator, Data Sources page. The specific databases you can configure for ColdFusion depend on the platform on which ColdFusion Server is installed and the edition of ColdFusion you're running, Express, Professional, or Enterprise.

When you first open the ColdFusion Administrator, you'll see two ODBC data sources already configured for use by ColdFusion:

- cfexamples -- A data source used by the example applications optionally installed with ColdFusion Server.
- cfsnippets -- A data source used by the runnable code examples accessed through pages in the CFML Language Reference and through the Snippets Launcher, which is accessible from the ColdFusion welcome page.