Edgar F. Codd is widely considered the father of the database management system (DBMS). Codd was an English computer scientist who worked at IBM in the 1960s and 1970s. During this time, he developed the relational model for database management, which revolutionized the way that data was stored and accessed in computer systems.

Before Codd’s work, databases were often structured in a hierarchical or network model, which made it difficult to search for and retrieve specific pieces of data. Codd’s relational model, on the other hand, allowed for data to be organized in tables, with rows representing individual records and columns representing the different attributes or fields of each record. Relationships between different tables could be established using keys, allowing for more flexible and efficient data access.

Codd’s work laid the foundation for the development of the modern DBMS, which is now used in a wide variety of applications and industries. His ideas have had a lasting impact on the field of computer science and continue to be influential to this day.