Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Let'stacklethelatterquestionirst.Adatabase can be described as any kind of
organized collection of data. Not all databases require a management system—think
ofthemanyspreadsheetsandotherile-basedstorageapproachesthatreallydon't
have any kind of real material oversight imposed on it, let alone a true management
system. A database management system, then, can technically be referred to as a set
of computer programs that manage (in the broadest sense of the word) the
database
. It
is a system that sits between the user-facing hardware and software components and
the data. It can be described as any system that is responsible for and able to manage
the structure of the data, is able to store and retrieve that data, and provides access to
this data in a correct, trustable, performant, secure fashion.
Databases as we know them, however, did not exist from the get-go of computing.
Atirst,mostcomputersused
memory
, and this memory used a special-purpose,
custom-made storage format that often relied on very manual, labor-intensive, and
hardware-based storage operations. Many systems relied on things like punch cards
for its instructions and datasets. It's not that long ago that computer systems evolved
from these seemingly ancient, special-purpose technologies.
Having read many different articles on this subject, I believe that the need for
"general purpose" database management systems, similar to the ones that we
know today, started to increase as:
• Thenumberofcomputerizedsystemssigniicantlyincreased
• A number of breakthroughs were realized in terms of computer memory.
Direct Access memory—memory that would not have to rely on lots of
winding of tapes or punched cards—became available in the middle of
the 1960s.
Both of these elements were necessary preconditions for any kind of multipurpose
databasemanagementsystemtomakesense.Theirstrealdatabasemanagement
systems seem to have cropped up in the 1960s, and I believe it would be useful
to quickly run through the different phases in the development of database
management systems.
