This
week’s blog post topic for group A is about relational databases. According to Google, a relational database is
a database structured to recognize relations among stored items of information. The concept of a relational database was
created by a researcher at IBM by the name of E.F. Codd around 1970 and has
continued to greatly evolve ever since.
Initially, your typical database was an incredibly long string of text
known as a tab delimited file. These tab
delimited files would essentially be a list of entries with a single character
in between them to section them off, with each entry containing all of the
information necessary for that entry alone.
Similar entries were often grouped together within the tab delimited
file but the information was not intertwined between different entries. Having to search for a very specific piece of
information through a setup of this type would often prove to be painstakingly
tedious and time consuming. In many
cases, an employee would be required to analyze an incredible amount of entries
to create tables or reports which would take an absurd amount of time to
complete (relative to our standards now.)
This large portion of time would cost companies a lot of money that was
seemingly being wasted considering what the output product was.
E.F.
Codd’s idea of the relational database was an amazingly useful tool for
achieving the same output products as the tab delimited file analyses in much
less time, and thus at a much lower cost to a company. The information within one entry of a relational
database is intertwined throughout the information within the other entries of
the relational database, creating what is essentially a web of data that can be
compared to other pieces of data very easily.
One of Codd’s initial ideas was to organize information into tables
rather than just separated strings, and using those tables, create other tables
of other related information for a much more efficient analysis which
ultimately saved companies an incredible amount of time and money as stated
before. This type of relational database
was so easy to utilize and so useful that it developed into one of the most
widely used computer programs throughout the world: Microsoft Excel.
Source:
What are relational databases?" 23 March 2001. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://computer.howstuffworks.com/>
Comments:
Mike Kilgallon: Great
post! I like how you related the concept
of the relational database theory into an idea that we all can relate to here
at Drexel. I wonder if Drexel would like
a database with all of the students and their debt upon graduation!
Audrey Ryan: Great
post! I was unaware that SQL is the most
popular language for defining relational database models and I like the fact
that you mentioned NoSQL which is used by two of the most well known companies
in the world (Google and Amazon.) Very
interesting!
Great post Phil! I was completely unaware of how relational databases are utilized, and you really got me at the end there with your drop of Microsoft Excel. It hit me like all those V8 commercials, can't believe I didn't think of it while I was reading your post. Well done.
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