Name: Edgar Frank “Ted” Codd

Born: August 23, 1923, Isle of Portland, England

Death: April 18, 2003 (Age: 80)

  • English computer scientist who, while working for IBM, invented the relational model for database management, the theoretical basis for SQL relational databases.
  • Coined the term OLAP (online analytical processing) and created relational algebra.

Significant publications

  • A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Bank. (1970).
  • Relational Completeness of Data Base Sublanguages". Database Systems: 65-98. (1970).
  • 1981 Turing Award Lecture - Relational Database: A Practical Foundation for Productivity. (1981).
  • The Relational Model for Database Management (Version 2 ed.) (1990).
  • Providing OLAP to User-Analysts: An IT Mandate. (1993).

Honors and awards

  • Turing Award (1981).
  • Inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (1994).
  • SIGMOD renamed its highest prize to the SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award, in his honor (2004).