Ideas
Edgar Codd

Edgar Codd (of IBM) proposed the relational database design around 1969

Burgess COMMENTARY
When the relational database design was described in 1969, it opened up a whole new way of managing data, and made it possible to design much more effective management information systems.
Peter Burgess

Relational database was proposed by Edgar Codd (of IBM Research) around 1969. It has since become the dominant database model for commercial applications (in comparison with other database models such as hierarchical, network and object models). Today, there are many commercial Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), such as Oracle, IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server. There are also many free and open-source RDBMS, such as MySQL, mSQL (mini-SQL) and the embedded JavaDB (Apache Derby).

A relational database organizes data in tables (or relations). A table is made up of rows and columns. A row is also called a record (or tuple). A column is also called a field (or attribute). A database table is similar to a spreadsheet. However, the relationships that can be created among the tables enable a relational database to efficiently store huge amount of data, and effectively retrieve selected data.

A language called SQL (Structured Query Language) was developed to work with relational databases.