A Brief History of Databases, describes some old database systems

Essay by David LynchUniversity, Master'sA, March 1996

download word file, 7 pages 5.0

In the 1960's, the use of main frame computers became widespread in many companies. To access vast amounts of stored information, these companies started to use computer programs like COBOL and FORTRAN. Data accessibility and data sharing soon became an important feature because of the large amount of information recquired by different departments within certain companies. With this system, each application owns its own data files. The problems thus associated with this type of file processing was uncontrolled redundancy, inconsistent data, inflexibility, poor enforcement of standards, and low programmer maintenance.

In 1964, MIS (Management Information Systems) was introduced. This would prove to be very influential towards future designs of computer systems and the methods they will use in manipulating data.

In 1966, Philip Kotler had the first description of how managers could benefit from the powerful capabilities of the electronic computer as a management tool.

In 1969, Berson developed a marketing information system for marketing research.

In 1970, the Montgomery urban model was developed stressing the quantitative aspect of management by highlighting a data bank, a model bank, and a measurement statistics bank. All of these factors will be influential on future models of storing data in a pool.

According to Martine, in 1981, a database is a shared collection of interrelated data designed to meet the needs of multiple types of end users. The data is stored in one location so that they are independent of the programs that use them, keeping in mind data integrity with respect to the approaches to adding new data, modifying data, and retrieving existing data. A database is shared and perceived differently by multiple users. This leads to the arrival of Database Management Systems.

These systems first appeared around the 1970=s as solutions to problems associated with mainframe computers. Originally,