1986
Michael Stonebraker leads the Postgres project
Michael Stonebraker led the Postgres database project at UC Berkeley in 1986 — extending Ingres with object-relational ideas that became PostgreSQL.
What it was for
Stonebraker's Ingres (1970s) and Postgres pioneered relational databaseA database structured as tables with rows and columns, queried with SQL — the dominant model for business data.s in academia before commercial Oracle and DB2 dominated. PostgreSQL is now the default open-source RDBMS for startups and enterprises.
People
- Michael Stonebraker — researcher
Why it's here
Stonebraker's Berkeley projects spawned PostgreSQL and modern open-source SQLStructured Query Language — the standard language for querying relational databases..
Why it mattered
Postgres extended relational databaseA database structured as tables with rows and columns, queried with SQL — the dominant model for business data.s with extensibility and advanced types.
What it solved
Relational systems needed richer data models without abandoning SQLStructured Query Language — the standard language for querying relational databases..
Media
ImageMichael StonebrakerDavid.Monniaux, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Related
- PostgreSQL 6.0 releasedJanuary 29, 1997
- Oracle Database 2 shipped1979