PRTV (Peterlee Relational Test Vehicle [1,2]) was the world's first relational database management system that could handle significant data volumes -- it was really a relational query system as it had very powerful query facilities, but very limited update facility and no simultaneous multiuser facility. PRTV was a followon from the very first relational implementation: IS1. Jump to: navigation, search A relational database management system (RDBMS) is a database management system (DBMS) that is based on the relational model as introduced by Edgar F. Codd. ... Jump to: navigation, search IS/1 [1] was the worlds first relational database system, implemented at the IBM United Kingdom Scientific Centre in Peterlee in the years 1970-1972. ...

PRTV included several firsts in the relational database area:

 implemented relational optimizer [3] implemented cost based relational optimizer [4] handle tables of 1000 rows (1993) up to 10,000,000 rows (1996) [5] user defined functions (UDFs) within an RDB (also a large suite of builtin functions such as trigonometric and statistical) [2] geographic information system [6] based on an RDB (using UDFs such as point-in-polygon) 

PRTV was based on a relational algebra, Information Systems Base Language (ISBL) and followed the relational model very strictly. Even features such as user defined functions were formalized within that model [7]. The PRTV team also introduced surrogates to the relational model [8] to help formalize relational update operations; and a formalisation for updating through views [9]. However neither of these was implemented within PRTV. PRTV emphatically did NOT implement NULL values, because of the formal problems these pose.

PRTV was itself never available as a product, but the Urban Management System [6] built on it was available as a limited IBM product.

[1] Stephen Todd, "PRTV: An Efficient Implementation for Large Relational Data Bases", VLDB 1975: 554-556

[2] S J P Todd, "The Peterlee Relational Test Vehicle - A System Overview", IBM Systems Journal, 15,4, pp.285-308, 1976.

[3] HALL, P.A.V. Optimization of a single relational expression in a relational database system. IBM J. Res. Develop. {May 1976}, 244-257.

[4] S J P Todd, "Relational Database Optimisation", Proceedings of Conference: (Sistemi di Basi di Dati, esperienze e ricerche), Venice, Italy, July 1977.

[5] Storey, R, Trebeljahr, W, Ourusoff, N, Bunzel, M, "Report of the World Health Organisation Information Systems Programme and IBM UK Scientific Centre study on the design of information systems", 1979, UKSC Report 105

[6] ALDRED, B. K., AND SMEDLEY, B.S. An urban management system--general overview, Rep. No UKSC-53, IBM UK Scientific Center, Peterlee, England, May 1974.

[7] P A V Hall, P Hitchcock, S J P Todd, "An algebra of relations for machine computation", Conference record of the second ACM Symposium on the Principles of Programming Languages, Palo Alto, California, January 1975.

[8] P A V Hall, J Owlett, S J P Todd, "Relations and entities", Modelling in Data Base Management Systems (ed GM Nijssen), North Holland 1976.

[9] S J P Todd, "Automatic Constraint Maintenance and Updating Defined Relations", Proceedings of the IFIP Congress 1977, Toronto, ed Gilchrist, North Holland, pp.145-148, August 1977.