A transaction processing system (TPS) is “an information processing system for business transactions involving the collection, modification, and retrieval of all transaction data” (“Transaction Process System,” 2012). Its history can be considered as intertwining with that of database systems (Krishnan, 2010). From the late ‘60s to the ‘80s, database research was at its peak, but as database systems were being developed, innovations were also being made in the field of transaction processing.
Improvements in transaction processing emerged from the need of business applications for better capabilities than those that batch mode data processing could offer (Bare, 2005). In response to this, IBM developed the first transaction processing software applications called CICS and IMS. Tuxedo was also created by AT&T and was later acquired by BEA. Even today, both BEA and IBM are vendors of application servers, which emerged from components called transaction processing monitors. Over time, additional functionalities were added, which included security, persistence, and web server among others. Similarly, the Enterprise Java Beans architecture was developed from transaction processing software applications such as CICS, especially since IBM was heavily involved in the development of J2EE.
Unlike other data-centric applications such as OLAP (online analytical processing), data mining, and decision support applications, transaction processing applications emphasize more on the rapid update of data rather than on data searches and summaries. In addition, with transactions being a means of concurrency control, the development of formal theory in the context of transaction processing has made significant contributions in concurrency research in computer science. Moreover, while transaction systems of the past could be run only by mainframe computers where examples include banking systems and airline reservation systems, there are now transaction processing systems for personal computers (“Transaction Processing Systems,” 2012). Especially with the growth of the Internet, non-commercial organizations, small companies, and private individuals can now take advantage of a transaction processing system’s capabilities.
References
Bare, C. (2005, September). Transaction processing cheat sheet. Retrieved from
http://www.cbare.org/writing/Transactions/transactions.html.
Krishnan, S. (2010). Programming Windows Azure. O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Transaction process system (TPS). (2012). Retrieved from
http://www.techopedia.com/definition/707/transaction-process-system-tps.
Transaction processing systems. (2012). Retrieved from
http://www.radpage.com/heitml2.1/features/transact.hei.
