To perform data discovery operations, an application requires connections to a database source and a Data Integration Service. To perform data subset and masking operations, workflows that you generate from plans require connections to services, the TDM repository, the PowerCenter repository, and source and target databases. To perform data generation operations, workflows that you generate from plans require connections to services, the TDM repository, the PowerCenter repository, and target schema metadata. To create data sets and to perform operations on data sets TDM requires a connection to a source and to a Test Data Warehouse Service.

TDM uses the following connections:

Profiling connection. Create a connection to the Data Integration Service that you want to run data discovery operations. The profiling connection includes connection details for the Model Repository Service associated with the Data Integration Service.
TDM repository connection. Create a connection to the TDM repository when you create the Test Data Manager Service from the Administrator tool. Test Data Manager uses the TDM repository to store the metadata from sources that you import.
PowerCenter repository connection. Create a connection to the PowerCenter repository that you want to store workflow metadata. If the TDM repository and the PowerCenter repository exist in the same schema, copy the connection information for the TDM repository.
Test data warehouse connection. Create a connection to the test data warehouse repository and the test data warehouse when you create the Test Data Warehouse Service.
Database connections. Create connections to the source and target databases to perform data discovery, data subset, and data masking operations. Import target metadata schema into the TDM repository to perform data generation operations. When you create a database connection in Test Data Manager, you define connection information for workflows and profiles. When you run a workflow or profile, Test Data Manager uses the connection information to create connection objects in the PowerCenter repository or the Model repository.
Test tool connection. To run workflows to copy flat file results to a test tool, you must first integrate the test tool server with TDM. TDM connects to the integrated server to copy the flat file to the configured location.