Illustra was a commercialized version of the

Postgres PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the ...

object-relational database management system (

DBMS In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

) sold by Illustra Information Technologies, a company formed by

Michael Stonebraker Michael Ralph Stonebraker (born October 11, 1943) is a computer scientist specializing in database systems. Through a series of academic prototypes and commercial startups, Stonebraker's research and products are central to many relational databa ...

and

Gary Morgenthaler Gary may refer to: *Gary (given name), a common masculine given name, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name *Gary, Indiana, the largest city named Gary Places ;Iran * Gary, Iran, Sistan and Baluchestan Province ;Uni ...

and several of Michael Stonebraker's current and former students including: Wei Hong, Jeff Meredith, Michael Olson,

Paula Hawthorn Paula Birdwell Hawthorn (born 1943) is an American computer scientist. She is recognised as an expert and pioneer in database systems. She has also founded organisations for women in computer science and created affirmative action programs to sup ...

, Jeff Anton, Cimarron Taylor and Michael Ubell. The technology's extensibility model centered on DataBlade modules that defined types and associated index methods, operators, and functions for purposes and data domains that included Web publishing, search and manipulation of text, and management of

geospatial Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also ca ...

information. The company was sold to

Informix IBM Informix is a product family within IBM's Information Management division that is centered on several relational database management system (RDBMS) offerings. The Informix products were originally developed by Informix Corporation, whose ...

Corp. in 1997. The technology was folded into the Informix 7 OnLine product line, leading eventually to the creation of the unified Informix Universal Server (IUS) product line. The entire Informix product line was sold to IBM, which continues to extend Informix and offer several Editions of Informix for use under various license metrics include two Editions which are free of charge.

External links

"Informix leaps to objects: Informix Universal Server promises to raise the database technology bar," by Bill Rosenblatt
Proprietary database management systems {{Compu-stub