InterBase is distinguished from other RDBMSs by its small footprint, close to zero administration requirements, and multi-generational architecture.

In many respects, InterBase is quite conventional ; it is a SQL-92-compliant relational database and supports standard interfaces such as JDBC, ODBC, and ADO. NET.

InterBase offers the option to run as an embedded database or regular server.

InterBase servers typically do not require full-time database administrators.

InterBase was the second commercial database to use this technique ; the first was DEC's Rdb / ELN.

A transaction with snapshot isolation in InterBase shows the state of the database precisely as it was at the instant the transaction began.

* Firebird ( database server ), database management system forked from the open sources of InterBase from Borland

The database forked from Borland's open source edition of InterBase in 2000, but since Firebird 1. 5 the code has been largely rewritten.

When Borland eventually sold its Quattro Pro and Paradox products to Novell, where they would be joined with Word Perfect in an attempt to match Microsoft Office, Borland was left with InterBase, which Esber had purchased in the late 1980s and had its origins as a derivative of the RDB database work at DEC. Borland's ongoing strategy was to refocus its development tools on the corporate market with client – server applications, so Interbase fitted in as a low-end tool and a good generic SQL database for prototyping.

With the InterBase division at Borland under new management, the company released a proprietary version of InterBase version 6 and then 6. 5.

Borland stopped open source releases of InterBase and has developed and sold new versions at a fast pace.

At the end of 2002, Borland released InterBase version 7, featuring support for SMP, enhanced support for monitoring and control of the server by administrators, and more.

Within a week of the InterBase 6. 0 source being released by Borland on 25 July 2000, the Firebird project was created on SourceForge.

In September 2008, Embarcadero announced the availability of InterBase 2009.

In September 2010, Embarcadero announced the availability of InterBase XE.

In September 1991 Borland purchased Ashton-Tate, bringing the dBase and InterBase databases to the house, in an all stock transaction.

InterBase 6. 0 was made available as an open source product in July 2000.

Plans to spin off the InterBase division as a separate company were abandoned after Borland and the people who were to run the new company could not agree on terms for the separation.

On February 8, 2006, Borland announced the divestiture of their IDE division, including Delphi, JBuilder, and InterBase.

InterBase runs on the Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Solaris operating systems.

However, certain technical features distinguish InterBase from other products.

A full InterBase 2009 server installation requires around 40 MB on disk.

A minimum InterBase client install requires about 400 KB of disk space.

In InterBase, readers do not block writers.

InterBase also uses its multi-generational architecture to implement rollbacks.

With their encouragement he formed Groton Database Systems ( named after the town, Groton, Massachusetts, where they were located ) on Labor Day 1984 and started work on what would eventually be released as InterBase.

The company was soon in trouble, and Borland purchased Ashton-Tate in 1991, acquiring InterBase as part of the deal.

In early 2000, Borland announced that InterBase would be released under open source, and began negotiations to spin off a separate company to manage the product.

When the people who were to run the new company and Borland could not agree on the terms of the separation, InterBase remained a Borland product, and the source code for InterBase version 6 was released under a variant of the Mozilla Public License in mid-2000.

Berkeley DB is not a relational database.

A normal relational database however, is not efficient for business intelligence reports where dimensional modelling is prevalent.

Results from an experiment by Davachi, Mitchell, and Wagner ( 2003 ) and numerous subsequent studies ( Davachi, 2006 ) show that activation in the hippocampus during encoding is related to a subject's ability to recall prior events or later relational memories.

The rigidity of the relational model, in which all data is held in tables with a fixed structure of rows and columns, has increasingly been seen as a limitation when handling information that is richer or more varied in structure than the traditional ' ledger-book ' data of corporate information systems: for example, document databases, engineering databases, multimedia databases, or databases used in the molecular sciences.

The relational model is a simple model that provides flexibility.

The most common language associated with the relational model is the Structured Query Language ( SQL ), though it differs in some places.

In the design of a relational database, the process of organizing database relations to minimize redundancy is called normalization.

In a relational database clustering the two respective relations " Items " and " Orders " results in saving the expensive execution of a Join operation between the two relations whenever such a join is needed in a query ( the join result is already ready in storage by the clustering, available to be utilized ).

Further, there is no reason that relational normalization concepts cannot be applied to CODASYL databases however, in the final tally, CODASYL was very complex and required significant training and effort to produce useful applications.

The relational structure is the most commonly used today.

The multidimensional structure is similar to the relational model.

The dominant model in use today is the ad hoc one embedded in SQL, despite the objections of purists who believe this model is a corruption of the relational model since it violates several fundamental principles for the sake of practicality and performance.

A relational normalised database imposes a heavy access load over physical storage of data even if it is well tuned for high performance.

Database normalization is the process of organizing the fields and tables of a relational database to minimize redundancy and dependency.

Informally, a relational database table is often described as " normalized " if it is in the Third Normal Form.

Settlement geography, including urban geography, is the study of urban and rural areas with specific regards to spatial, relational and theoretical aspects of settlement.

A key field is a field or set of fields ( a key is then said to be a composite key ) of a database ( typically a relational database ) table which together form a unique identifier for a database record ( a table entry ).

WordNet " is a type of an online electronic lexical database organized on relational principles, which now comprises nearly 100, 000 concepts " as Dirk Geeraerts states it.

There are attempts to introduce a category of relational disorder, where the diagnosis is of a relationship rather than on any one individual in that relationship.