Databas

SQL

Modeller & data-design

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Early History of Databases

Before databases existed, everything had to be recorded on paper. We had lists, journals, ledgers and endless archives containing hundreds of thousands or even millions of records contained in filing cabinets. When it was necessary to access one of these records, finding and physically obtaining the record was a slow and laborious task. There were often problems ranging from misplaced records to fires that wiped out entire archives and destroyed the history of societies, organizations and governments. There were also security problems because physical access was often easy to gain.

The database was created to try and solve these limitations of traditional paper-based information storage. In databases, the files are called records and the individual data elements in a record (for example, name, phone number, date of birth) are called fields. The way these elements are stored has evolved since the early days of databases.

The earliest systems were called the hierarchical and network models.

The hierarchical model organized data in a tree-like structure, as shown in fig and IBM developed this model in the 1960s.

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