SQL
SQL was initially developed at IBM by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce after learning about the relational model from Ted Codd in the early 1970s. This version, initially called "SEQUEL" ("Structured English Query Language"), was designed to manipulate and retrieve data stored in IBM's original quasi-relational database management system, System R, which a group at IBM San Jose Research Laboratory had developed during the 1970s.
History of Microsoft SQL Server
SQL Server 7.0 was a major rewrite (C++) of the older Sybase engine, which was coded in C. Data pages were enlarged from 2k bytes to 8k bytes. Extents thereby grew from 16k bytes to 64k bytes. User Mode Scheduling (UMS) was introduced to handle SQL Server threads better than Windows preemptive multi-threading, also adding support for fibers (lightweight threads, introduced in NT 4.0, which are used to avoid context switching). SQL Server 7.0 also introduced a multi-dimensional database product called SQL OLAP Services (which became Analysis Services in SQL Server 2000).
SQL Server 7.0 would be the last version to run on the DEC Alpha platform. Although there were pre-release versions of SQL 2000 (as well as Windows 2000) compiled for Alpha, these were canceled and were never commercially released.