It is a reference to a physical table.

Aliases are created in the physical laye r of the repository and are an important part of designing a physical layer. An alias table is a physical table that references a different physical table as it s source (called the original table). A Logic Table Source (LTS) have some properties and column definitions associate d with it. A LTS shows how the logical objects in the logical layer are mapped t o the physical layer and can be mapped to the physical tables, stored procedures and others select statements. Creating an alias creates a copy of the metadata table object that will be referenced in SQL with a new alias name. The alias nam e in SQL, as it is for all tables, will be derived its metadata ID. So an alias table can be a reference to any of the LTS types. Alias tables can be an important part of designing a Physical layer because they enable you to reuse an existing table more than once, without having to import it several times.