FAME (database)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
FAME (forecasting analysis and modeling environment) is a time series database and domain-specific programming language.
FAME was created and first marketed in 1982/3 by GemNet Software of Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States, founded by David Goldsmith and Larry Rafsky, PhDs in Economics (Harvard) and Statistics (Yale) respectively. It had its roots in ADP Network Services (also of Ann Arbor, Michigan); ADP's TSAM (Time Series Analysis and Modeling) product was a partial inspiration for the original FAME 4GL. TSAM ran on ADP's time-sharing machines, but FAME was intended for general installation on Digital Equipment Corporation VAX (and later Prime Computer) systems.
Goldsmith was the chief language designer, James Dowling the database and processing engine architect, Tom Steppe designed the graphics engine, Dick Vile wrote the compiler, and Bobbi Guarino did the econometrics.
The first commercial installation was at Harris Bank in Chicago, the second at Salomon Brothers on Wall Street.
It has long since been a tool used by the banking and finance industries, where for example it acts as a back-end storage facility for services like the Financial Times Share Indexes. In the late 1980s, FAME was also used by the JP Morgan company (now JPMorgan Chase) in their equity quantitative analysis and modeling group to generate models of the stock market. Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and others mounted similar efforts.
FAME, unlike a relational database, is optimized and designed from scratch to hold data held in a time format. It is based on a B-tree data structure.
GemNet, later renamed FAME Software Corp and then FAME Information Services, was acquired by Citicorp in 1985, and later sold to private investors. In December 2003 FAME Information Services was acquired by Sungard Market Data Services who now offer the FAME database along with a suite of associated products. FAME Software Corporation registered the original fame.com domain in 1992.
