Editing Ingres (database) (section)

== Postgres ==
{{Main|PostgreSQL}}
The Postgres project was started in the mid 1980s to address limitations of existing database-management implementations of the relational model. Primary among these was their inability to let the user define new domains (or "types") which are combinations of simpler domains (see [[relational model]] for an explanation of the term "domain"). The project explored other ideas including the incorporation of write-once media (e.g., optical disks), the use of massive storage (e.g., never delete data), inferencing, and object-oriented data models.  The implementation also experimented with new interfaces between the database and application programs (e.g., "portals", which are sometimes referred to as "fat cursors").<ref>{{cite web
|quote=Since Transact-SQL positioned UPDATE/DELETE statements operate, by default, on the first row in a '''fat cursor''', sp_cursor SETPOSITION should be used to position the cursor before issuing the positioned UPDATE/DELETE statement.
|url=https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/system-stored-procedures/sp-cursoroption-transact-sql
|title=sp_cursoroption (Transact-SQL)|date=28 February 2023
}}</ref>

The resulting project, named "Postgres", aimed at introducing the minimum number of features needed to add complete types support. These included the ability to define types, but also the ability to fully describe relationships &ndash; which up until this time had been widely used but maintained entirely by the user. In Postgres, the database "understood" relationships, and could retrieve information in related tables in a natural way using ''rules''.

In the 1990s, Stonebraker started a new company to commercialize Postgres, under the name '''[[Illustra]]'''. The company and technology were later purchased by [[Informix Corporation]].