System R

1995 SQL Reunion

System R is a database system built as a research project at IBM San Jose Research (now IBM Almaden Research Center) in the 1970's. System R introduced the SQL language and also demonstrated that a relational system could provide good transaction processing performance.

To learn more about System R, you can read:

The 1995 SQL Reunion: People, Projects, and Politics: an informal but first-hand account of the birth of SQL, the history of System R, and the origins of a number of other relational systems inside and outside IBM.
Also available in Russian at CIT Forum .
Bibliography: a bibliography of all System R papers, compiled by Don Chamberlin (see also System R page of ACM SIGMOD Anthology)
People: a directory of people who worked on System R and related systems
Other relational systems: summaries of other early relational database systems
Reverse citations: Other web sites that link into this one

Paul McJones's home page
Internet address: paul at mcjones dot org