Historical Database Context

Historical context [RDS]

1960s: Charles Bachman has `information-centric' ideas and with others developed a network DBMS called IDS (Integrated Data Store) for Honeywell
1970: Edgar F. Codd writes paper in CACM
- espoused relational model of data
- used an algebra to manipulate/query data
1971: two camps, with differing viewpoints, formed
- Bachman's COBOL/CODASYL (Committee on Data Systems and Languages) camp championing network model
  - DBTG (DataBase Task Group)
  - espoused record-oriented queries
  - said relational camp is too theoretical
  - no efficiency in relational approach
- Codd's relational camp championing relational, theoretical ideas
  - espoused set-oriented queries
  - said COBOL/CODASYL camp is not theoretical
1973: Charles Bachman receives Turing Award
1975: ACM SIGMOD panel discussion (`The Great Debate'): Codd vs. Bachman
late 1970s:
- two camps understand each other better
- more usable relational languages
  - QUEL (1975)
  - SQL (1976)
- relational prototypes, with reasonable efficiency, built
  - System R
  - INGRES
1974-78: System R(elational)
- at IBM Almaden, San Jose
- developed their own filesystem
- two levels
  - RSS (Relational Storage System)
  - RDS (Relational Data System)
- used SEQUEL
- RSS largely influenced by Jim Gray and K.P. Eswaran
- went commercial
  - evolved into ESVAL (formed by Eswaran) and then into
    - HP's ALLBASE
    - Cullinet's IDMS/SQL; Britton-Lee (which was part of NCR) helped to build the IDM software
  - later independently became IBM's DB2 and SQL/DS
  - eventually become Oracle
1973-77: INGRES
- at UC Berkeley, only 50 miles away
- used the UNIX System V filesystem (no support for crash recovery)
- developed on 16-bit PDP-11
- used QUEL
- largely influenced by Mike Stonebraker
- also went commercial
  - INGRES Corporation is now part of Computer Associates
  - Sybase focused on transaction processing
1981: Codd receives Turing Award for relational model
1998: Gray receives Turing Award for transaction processing (employed at Microsoft Research)
2003: Codd dies in April
2007: Jim Gray lost at sea off the coast of San Francisco in January (still missing)

The DB Industry

RDBMS's are the perennial success story of simple theoretical ideas
`Big 3' database companies are among the largest in the software industry
- Oracle, Informix, Sybase
- others trying to get a piece of the pie: Microsoft
Terdata, Inc. (a former division of NCR) locally in Dayton, OH

References

[FCDB]	J.D. Ullman and J. Widom. A First Course in Database Systems. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Second Edition, 2002.
[RDS]	J.M. Hellerstein and M. Stonebraker, eds. Readings in Database Systems, Chapter 1: The Roots, MIT Press, San Francisco, CA, Fourth Edition, 2005.