The Database of Databases encyclopedia project is an academic effort by the Carnegie Mellon Database Group (CMU-DB) to systematically catalog and document the technical characteristics of database management systems. The collected information provided on this site enables comparative analysis across generations of systems and research ideas. The project's pedagogical goal is to provide students, researchers, and practitioners with a structured resource for studying how database systems evolved and how different architectural choices address workload and application requirements.
The encyclopedia project began in 2017 as an educational tool in CMU-DB's database courses. Students contribute research and documentation about database systems as part of learning how real-world database systems are designed and deployed. In this way, the project promotes both historical literacy and critical technical evaluation of the most important category of software in human history.