A Microsoft Repository system consists of the following components.
| Component | Description and use |
| The Repository database | A relational database. Queries the database directly with SQL queries. Do not write directly to the database; the Repository engine does this for you. |
| The Repository engine | Manages data in the Repository. Provides basic functions to store and retrieve Repository objects and the relationships among them. The engine has its own object model. |
| An information model | An object model. Specifies the types of information of interest to one or more tools. For example, the Microsoft Development Objects (MDO) Model is an information model that specifies the types of data of interest to Visual Basic programmers. It lets those programmers use Repository-aware tools to analyze the structure of their Visual Basic projects. |
| The Type Information Model | A special information model. Specifies the types of information of interest to information model creators. Used by information model creators to describe their application-specific models to the Repository. |
| Application development tools | Software tools for managing the process of developing, deploying, and maintaining software applications. |
The following figure shows the Repository architecture.
For More Information The Repository Engine Object Model, Information Models, The Type Information Model