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An extensive history of Datacom/DB written by Orrin Stevens is available from IEEE.

Datacom/DB is a relational database management system for the mainframes. Originally developed by Insyte Datacom, later acquired by Applied Data Research, it is now owned by CA Technologies which renamed it to CA-Datacom/DB and later to CA Datacom/DB.

History

In 1965 Orrin Stevens, Dave Willis, and Chuck McCoy worked together on a cutting-edge project to promote the data storage and high-speed communications of IBM's newly introduced System/360. Their task was to automate two of the three largest credit bureaus in the United States -- Chilton Corporation of Dallas and the Credit Bureau of Greater Houston, and the National Association of Credit Bureaus. Following the success of this project all three men were offered promotions within IBM. Rather than leave their homes in Dallas, Texas, the three men left IBM in 1968 to found a company called Computer Information Management (CIM) with the intent to springboard their extensive credit bureau experience at IBM into a consulting business specializing in the credit-reporting industry.

Over the next few years CIM shifted its focus to programming contracts and telecommunications-based banking applications. One of CIM's first contracts was the design and implementation of an online teller system for First National Bank of Fort Worth. The success of this system led to many more contracts and CIM soon realized it needed to produce an actual product rather than continue to sell its time and knowledge. In 1970 CIM packaged and sold the first Generalized Multi-tasking Monitor (GMT), which was marketed initially to financial institutions using proprietary teleprocessing workstations.

Technical Origins of Datacom

In the early 1970s CIM's customers tended to be large institutions that required fast access to data stored in massive and ever-changing datasets. Access to these datasets had historically utilized a structure-driven approach. Chuck McCoy realized, however, that GMT needed data access that didn't require any restructuring of the underlying data set. His revolutionary design utilized keys that could be expanded and restructured at any time without affecting the database. This key-driven approach allowed CIM to accommodate its clients' rapidly-changing information needs by extracting new key files without altering or manipulating the underlying datasets in any way. It also made data retrieval extremely fast by associating each key field with a record address. This association of a key field with a data pointer was unique in the industry and has remained a hallmark of Datacom for the past 40 years.

Many DBMS applications were initially designed as batch processors. This approach made their transition to online environments difficult. CIM's key-driven design was a completely multi-threaded, multi-tasked implementation in the original GMT product introduced in 1970. As a result, GMT was years ahead of its competitors' products and significantly more easily managed the industry's migration to a fully relational environment with SQL.

The Acquisition of FMS

In order to augment its revenue in 1971 CIM purchased exclusive ownership of one of the world's largest accounting systems, Financial Management System, from another Texas company. FMS included general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, inventory, and income tax reporting. Unlike GMT, which was highly technical and was a difficult sell to most executives at the time, FMS was readily understood and appreciated by most of CIM's clientele. In short order CIM sold its systems to many large banks across the United States -- including Citibank and Republic National Bank of Dallas -- as a means for them to sell business services to their commercial clients. This relationship allowed CIM to interact with the banks' data processing teams as well as their customer service departments, which was a unique situation.

Bibliography

• Pratt, Philip J. (1987). DATABASE SYSTEMS: Management and Design. Boston: Boyd & Fraser Publishing Company. ISBN 0-87835-227-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

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External links

• Product web page
• History of Datacom/DB
• CADRE - a Datacom/DB user group
• Prerelational DBMS vendors — a quick overview

References

Category:Proprietary database management systems