The Origin of the Integrated Data Store (IDS): The First Direct-Access DBMS

The Integrated Data Store (IDS), the first direct-access database management system, was developed at General Electric in the early 1960s. Revisiting the development challenges that lead to its first production version reveals the origins of DBMSs and their impact on software development and business management. IDS and its derivative systems are still in use today, supporting a thousand mainframe installations.