History Of Oracle Database

The following are the important events and years in which these events took place.

Network and Hierarchical Models

Charles Bachman of General Electric proposed a network model with data records linked together, forming intersecting sets of data in 1964.

The North American Aviation's Space Division and IBM developed a second approach based on a hierarchical model in 1965. In this model, data is represented as tree structures in a hierarchy of records.

IBM's product based on this model was brought to market in 1969 as the Information Management System (IMS).

Birth Of Relational Model - early 1970

The concept of the relational database was first described around 1970 by Dr. Edgar F. Codd in an IBM research publication entitled "System R4 Relational."

Relational Software, Incorporated (RSI) was founded in 1979 and released Oracle V.2 as the world's first relational database.

By 1985, Oracle could claim more than 1,000 relational database customer sites. IBM itself would not embrace relational technology in a commercial product until the Query Management Facility in 1983.

Birth of Oracle Corporation - 1983

RSI (Relational Software, Incorporation) was renamed to Oracle Corporation.

Beginning of Portability

Oracle Corporation created a portable version of Oracle (Version 3) that ran not only on Digital VAX/VMS systems, but also on Unix and other platforms.

By 1985 , Oracle claimed the ability to run on more than 30 platforms.

Client/Server database - 1986

Since networks became available in mid 80s, Oracle started supporting Client/Server model.

Oracle Financials - 1988

Oracle entered into products market and developed its EPR product- Oracle Financials based on Oracle Relational Database.

Oracle6 - 1989

Oracle version 6.0 was released in 1989. First time PL/SQL entered into scene. Integrity constraints are only declared but not defined.

Oracle7 - 1993

Oracle release version 7.0 in 1993. It provided complete support for Integrity constraints.

Oracle8 - 1997

Oracle for the first started supporting objects in Database. As Oracle started supporting object, it is also called as ORBDMS ( Object Relational Database Management System) from Oracle8 onwards.

Also introduced features related to VLDB(Very Large Database) features such as partitioning tables.

Oracle8i - 1999

Oracle corporation started saying moving towards Internet model, where everything is stored in Internet.

One of the biggest new features is support for Java in Oracle database. You can use either PL/SQL or Java. Oracle database contains Java Virtual Machine.

To read more about what is new in Oracle8i, read What's new in Oracle8i article.

Oracle9iAS - 2000

Oracle corporation is no longer a company providing only database management system and instead started providing all that it takes to develop and deploy a complete application.

AS(Application Server) runs on middle tier in 3-tier Client/Server architecture boosting the performance.

Oracle9iDB - 2001

Oracle9i Database was released. It is said that it has 400 new features all together.

You can get information about new features that were introduced in Oracle9iDB through New features of Oracle9i Database

Now, Oracle Corporation is second largest software first only next to Microsoft. It's head Larry Ellison believes that application are to be run on Internet and not on Client/Server. He says this is Information Age. He also says the order of the day is Suite ( a collection of products that are designed to be used together). That is the reason Oracle9i comes with three modules - Database, Developer Suite and Application Server, which are used together to developer an Internet application.

If you have any other interesting statistics about Oracle Corporation’s present or past, please send a mail to kamrul.aece@yahoo.com.