Database Management Systems and the Growth of the Internet

Recent inventions and technical advancements have changed the appearance and indeed, the entire capability of the internet as most people know it. Many events have contributed to this change, but none so much as the processing method known as Database Management Systems (DBMS). From its birth in the last century, the way computers process information has grown and expanded to a point that would have been hard to imagine for the early programmers. This growth actually spurred on the growth of the telecommunications industry. Carrier systems have grown with the advancing march of computers in general, but the huge amount of data required by DBMS created a need for massive carrier capability and the birth of what we call the internet (Grad, 2009). Without the push from DBMS, the internet itself may not exist. From early history data, through the war and cold war years, to the last few decades, each technology is absolutely reliant on the other to keep moving forward. If one stagnates, they will both stall. The telecom and DBMS industries are so connected and inter-twined that they even trace their roots back to the same two people.

While humans have created and processed written information for most of our existence, we have just recently expanded the amount of data we work with on a daily basis. Books and newspapers have been utilized for hundreds of years. Encyclopedias and scientific manuals enabled the knowledge to be archived and used by education facilities. Businesses grew by advertising their products with catalogs and brochures. Near the turn of the 19th century, the process of coding a letter to machine language was created. The paper punched cards were used for a while to control certain aspects of machinery, ...

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