Oracle Database
The Oracle database is a relational database system extensively used in product and internet-based applications in different platforms. Oracle database was developed by Larry Ellison, along with friends and former coworkers Bob Miner and Ed Oates, who had started a consultancy called Software Development Laboratories (SDL). They called their finished product Oracle, after the code name of a CIA-funded project they had worked on at a previous employer, Ampex.
In 1979 SDL changed its company name to Relational Software, Inc. (RSI) and introduced their product Oracle V2 as the first commercial relational database system. The version did not support transactions but implemented the basic SQL functionality of queries and joins. There was no version 1, instead the first version was called version 2 as a marketing strategy.
In 1983, RSI was renamed Oracle Corporation to more closely align itself with its flahship product. Oracle version 3 was released which had been re-written in the C Programming Language and supported commit and rollback transaction functionalities. Platform support was extended to UNIX with this version, which until then had run on Digital VAX/VMS systems.
In 1984, Oracle version 4 was released which suppored read consistency.
Starting 1985, Oracle began supporting the Client-Server model, with networks becoming available in the mid 80s. Oracle version 5.0 supported distributed querying.
In 1988, Oracle entered the products market and developed its EPR product - Oracle Financials based on the Oracle Relational Database. Oracle version 6 was released with support for PL/SQL, row-level locking and hot backups.
In 1992, Oracle version 7 was released with support for integrity constraints, stored procedures and triggers.
In 1997, Oracle version 8 was released with support for object-oriented development and multimedia applications.
In 1999, Oracle 8i was released which is more in tune with the needs of the Internet (The "i" in the name stands for Internet). The database has a native Java Virtual Machine.
In 2001, Oracle 9i was released with 400 new features including the facilty to read and write XML documents.
List of Firsts
- Oracle is the world's first RDBMS.
- Oracle is the first database product tested to comply with the ANSI SQL standard.
- Oracle is the first database to incorporate a native JRE
- Oracle is the first commercial RDBMS to become available on Linux (August 1999)