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 database source name (DSN) does not have to be the same as the filename for the database.
A data source is any of the following types of sources for (mostly) digitized data:
- a database (in the Java software platform, datasource is a special name for the connection set up to a database from a server)
- a computer file
- a data stream
Please see more here (Wikipedia entry for Datasource) and here (Java 6 Datasource interface documentation)