Editing IDMS (section)

==History==
The roots of IDMS go back to the pioneering [[database management system]] called [[Integrated Data Store]] (IDS), developed at [[General Electric]] by a team led by [[Charles Bachman]] and first released in 1964.<ref>{{Cite web |title= Oral-History:Charles Bachman |work= IEEE Oral History Network |date= April 9, 2011 |author= Andrew L. Russell  |url= https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Charles_Bachman|accessdate= September 3, 2013 }}</ref> In the early 1960s IDS was taken from its original form, by the computer group of the B.F. Goodrich Chemical Division, and re-written in a language called Intermediate System Language (ISL).<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/954639.954646 | doi=10.1145/954639.954646 | title=An intermediate systems language for the PDP-11 | date=1977 | last1=Karasz | first1=Peter | journal=ACM SIGPLAN Notices | volume=12 | issue=7 | pages=85–100 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>  ISL was designed as a portable [[system programming language]] able to produce code for a variety of target machines.  Since ISL was actually written in ISL, it was able to be ported to other machine architectures with relative ease, and then to produce code that would execute on them.

The Chemical Division computer group had given some thought to selling copies of IDMS to other companies, but was told by management that they were not in the software products business.  Eventually, a deal was struck with John Cullinane to buy the rights and market the product. Because Cullinane was required to remit royalties back to [[Goodrich Corporation|B.F. Goodrich]], all add-on products were listed and billed as separate products – even if they were mandatory for the core IDMS product to work. This sometimes confused customers.

The original platforms were the [[GE-200 series|GE 235]] computer and GE [[DATANET-30]] message switching computer: later the product was ported to IBM mainframes and to [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] and [[International Computers Limited|ICL]] hardware. The IBM-ported version runs on [[IBM mainframe]] systems ([[System/360]], [[System/370]], [[System/390]], [[zSeries]], [[System z9]]). In the mid-1980s, it was claimed that some 2,500 IDMS licenses had been sold. Users included the [[Strategic Air Command]], Ford of Canada, Ford of Europe, Jaguar Cars, Clarks Shoes UK, [[AXA]]/PPP, [[MAPFRE]], Royal Insurance, [[Tesco]], Manulife, [[Hudson's Bay Company]], Cleveland Clinic, [[Bank of Canada]], General Electric, Aetna and [[BT Group|BT]] in the UK.

A version for use on the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 series of computers was sold to DEC and was marketed as DBMS-11. In 1976 the source code was licensed to [[International Computers Limited|ICL]], who ported the software to run on their [[ICL 2900 Series|2900 series]] mainframes, and subsequently also on the older [[ICT 1900 series|1900 range]]. ICL continued development of the software independently of Cullinane, selling the original ported product under the name [[ICL VME#Application development tools|ICL 2900 IDMS]] and an enhanced version as [[ICL VME#Application development tools|IDMSX]]. In this form it was used by many large UK users, an example being the Pay-As-You-Earn system operated by Inland Revenue. Many of these IDMSX systems for UK Government were still running in 2013.

In the early to mid-1980s, [[relational database management system]]s started to become more popular, encouraged by increasing hardware power and the move to [[minicomputer]]s and [[client–server]] architecture. Relational databases offered improved development productivity over [[CODASYL]] systems, and the traditional objections based on poor performance were slowly diminishing.

[[Cullinet]] attempted to continue competing against [[IBM]]'s [[IBM DB2|DB2]] and other relational databases by developing a relational front-end and a range of productivity tools. These included Automatic System Facility (ASF), which made use of a pre-existing IDMS feature called LRF (Logical Record Facility). ASF was a fill-in-the-blanks database generator that would also develop a mini-application to maintain the tables.

It is difficult to judge whether such features may have been successful in extending the selling life of the product, but they made little impact in the long term. Those users who stayed with IDMS were primarily interested in its high performance, not in its relational capabilities. It was widely recognized (helped by a high-profile campaign by [[E. F. Codd]], the father of the [[relational model]]) that there was a significant difference between a relational database and a network database with a relational veneer.

In 1989 Computer Associates continued after Cullinet acquisition<ref>[http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-8010527/ca-completes-cullinet-merger.html Information and results for 'CA completes Cullinet merger. (Computer Associates International Inc., Cullinet Software Inc.)' | AccessMyLibrary – Promoting library advocacy]</ref> with the development and released Release 12.0 with full [[SQL]] in 1992–93.  CA Technologies continued to market and support the CA IDMS and  enhanced IDMS in subsequent releases by [[TCP/IP]] support, [[two phase commit]] support, [[XML]] publishing, [[zIIP]] specialty processor support, Web-enabled access in combination with CA IDMS Server, SQL Option and GUI database administration via CA IDMS Visual DBA tool. CA-IDMS systems are today still running businesses worldwide. Many customers have opted to web-enable their applications via the CA-IDMS SQL Option which is part of CA Technologies' Dual Database Strategy.