You can create a connection to external SDF, SHP, SQLite, and raster files, without loading them into the resource repository.
Autodesk Infrastructure Studio uses Autodesk and OSGeo FDO providers. An FDO provider is an implementation of the Feature Data Objects API that provides access to data in a particular data store, or to speciric kinds of files. For more information about FDO, see the Open Source Geospatial website at http://fdo.osgeo.org.
You have the option of entering a pathname or selecting a file using the aliases set up in Infrastructure Map Server - Site Administrator. If you enter a pathname, the file must be located either on the same server as Map Server, although not in the resource repository, or in a location directly accessible from the server. If you want to access resources on your local machine, you must set up an alias in Site Administrator; entering the pathname to a location on your local machine will not work.