The Advancing Art of Indexing - High-Performance Web Databases: Design, Development, and Deployment - page 636

Whenever tackling any daunting task, most practitioners undertake the
most obvious issues first. Thus, when it came to providing enterprisewide
data access, the most prominent roadblock was getting users onto the sys-
tem with the appropriate levels of security and programs to access the
data they needed.
In the 1980s, such companies as Information Builders, Cognos, and Uni-
face launched the first revolution in end-user access by selling fourth-gen-
eration language (4GL) development tools. Fourth-generation languages
made it possible to develop new applications in a fraction of the time re-
quired by conventional programming techniques. Meanwhile, PCS were
gaining favor in the corporate world. Terminal emulation software sold by
the thousands — then millions — as the proliferation of PCS became the
new way to get access to the corporate system.
These new applications and terminal emulation techniques allowed a
multitude of users to directly access data in corporate systems. The deci-
sion support system for the organization's knowledge worker was on its
way. Granted, the access was usually reserved for either the data-entry lev-
el technician who used the system to enter, update, and delete information,
or the hearty few who were confident enough to manipulate the applica-
tions. But the revolutionary step of allowing users directly on the system
had taken place. The idea of interactive data access had become the norm.
Users requested access to data immediately — online!
LET THERE BE UNIVERSAL ACCESS: CLIENT/SERVER
AND NETWORKS
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, millions of users were brought
online. Data bases grew larger while the number of users who accessed
them and the frequency of their access continued to expand. Even as users
were clamoring for more, organizations were failing to see the return they
had expected from their investments in technology.
Even though these new applications allowed access to corporate data, it
was in a rigid, predefined manner that protected system resources. Users
who were not comfortable with a character environment, or who did not
take the time to learn the cryptic commands and data layouts, still needed
to depend on the IS department for their data needs. Information could still
take weeks to get if it differed from the preestablished reports. Individual
access was limited to one system at a time. Access to multiple data sources
on various hosts from the same terminal was virtually impossible.
The next step was inevitable. The obvious choice to many was to marry
the now-pervasive PC and its user-friendliness with the power of the corpo-
rate system. By the early 1990s, most corporations began developing some
form of client/server system to increase efficiency and end-user access.