When I first started in IT, back in the Mainframe Dark Ages, we had hulking big databases that ran on IBM’s Customer Information Control System, written in COBOL. These mainframes ran on a complex collection of hardware and operating systems that was owned lock, stock, and bus and tag barrel by IBM. The average age of the code was measured in decades, and code changes were measured in months. They contained millions of transactions, and the data was always out of date since it was a batch system, meaning every night new data would be uploaded.

Contrast that to today’s typical database setup. Data is current to the second, code is changed hourly, and the nature of what constitutes a transaction has changed significantly to something that is now called a “digital twin,” which I explain in my latest post for SiliconANGLE here.

Code is written in dozens of higher-level languages that have odd names that you may never have heard of, and this code runs on a combination of cloud and on-premises equipment that uses loads of microprocessors and open source products that can be purchased from hundreds of suppliers.

It really is remarkable, and that these changes have happened all within the span of a little more than 35 years. You can read more in my post.