The hierarchical database model, created by IBM in the 1960s, uses a tree structure to relate data. It’s inflexible compared to modern relational databases but still used for some applications.
The hierarchical database model is one of the first database models to receive widespread acceptance, mainly due to its ability to relate one section of data to another. In this model, which has a tree structure, there are several levels of hierarchies starting with a parent node and leading up to a child node. For example, if a parent node is “Name”, the child node would be a list of names and the next level up would be specific information about that name. While flexible when it first came out, the hierarchical database model is rarely used in modern databases, because modern databases have stronger relational grouping capabilities.
In hierarchical database model, everything is related to a hierarchy. There are some general parent nodes at the top level of the database. When a user selects the node, a more specific node will appear, and when the user clicks on one of those nodes, even more specific information will appear. For example, if the top hierarchy is ‘Exercise’ then the next nodes could be ‘Weightlifting’ and ‘Cardio’ then there could be muscle groups for the former and running methods for the latter, and then even more specific information after that. That.
Created in the 1960s by IBM®, the hierarchical database model is considered to be the first database model ever deployed. In the early days of databases, this was considered extremely flexible, because database designers could easily show the relationships between different nodes and users could easily enter data. The hierarchical database became known as one-to-many database, because one node was related to many others.
When the relational database came out, the hierarchical database model lost popularity. This is because, compared to the relational database, the hierarchical database is inflexible. It can relate a single node to many others, whereas the relational model can relate several nodes to several other nodes. Newer versions of the hierarchical database allow designers to relate a parent node to several other nodes, but this is more difficult to program than the relational database.
While not in use for most modern databases, the hierarchical database model is still used for some applications as of 2011. For servers designed to hold data for long periods without the data being touched, it is usually finds a hierarchical database, because that was the database model used when the server was created. Another reason to use the hierarchical model is that when paired with a simple database containing only a few records, it takes less time to program.
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