IBM System R is a database system built as a research project at IBM's San Jose Research Laboratory beginning in 1974,1 led by Edgar Codd, to implement his ideas on relational databases.2 System R was a seminal project as the first implementation of SQL, which has since become the standard relational data query language. It was also the first system to demonstrate that a relational database could provide good transaction processing performance. Design decisions in System R, as well as some fundamental algorithm choices (such as the dynamic programming algorithm used in query optimization3), influenced many later relational systems.
System R's first customer was Pratt & Whitney in 1977.4 Not running on Unix hurt its popularity.2
References
References
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"A History and Evaluation of System R" (PDF). IBM.
"Phase Zero" of the project, which occurred during 1974 and-most of 1975, involved the development of the SQL user interface
- "RDBMS Plenary 1: Early Years" (PDF) (Interview). Interviewed by Burton Grad. Computer History Museum. 2007-06-12. Retrieved 2025-05-30.
- Selinger, PG; Astrahan, MM; Chamberlin, Donald D; Lorie, RA; Price, TG (1979), "Access Path Selection in a Relational Database Management System", Proceedings of the 1979 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data, pp. 23–34, doi:10.1145/582095.582099, ISBN 978-0897910019, S2CID 8537523
- McJones, P (1995), "SQL reunion", System R.
External links
External links
- Brewer, A History and Evaluation of System R (PDF), Berkeley: University of California.
- McJones, P, System R.
- The 1995 SQL Reunion: People, Projects, and Politics (PDF; technical report), Digital Equipment Corporation.