Database application

Article summary

A database application is a computer program whose primary purpose is retrieving information from a computerized database. From here, information can be inserted, modified or deleted which is subsequently conveyed back into the database. Early examples of database applications were accounting systems and airline reservations systems, such as SABRE, developed starting in 1957. A characteristic of modern database applications is that they facilitate simultaneous updates and queries from multiple users. Systems in the 1970s might have accomplished this by having each user in front of a 3270 terminal to a mainframe computer. By the mid-1980s it was becoming more common to give each user a personal computer and have a program running on that PC that is connected to a database server. Information would be pulled from the database, transmitted over a network, and then arranged, graphed, or otherwise formatted by the program running on the PC. Starting in the mid-1990s it became more common to build database applications with a Web interface. Rather than develop custom software to run on a user's PC, the user would use the same Web browser program for every application. A database application with a Web interface had the advantage that it could be used on devices of different sizes, with different hardware, and with different operating systems.…

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