Information processing drives the growth of computers, as it has from the earliest days of commercial computers. In fact, automation of data processing tasks predates computers. Punched cards, invented by Herman Hollerith, were used at the very beginning of the twentieth century to record U.S. census data, and mechanical systems were used to process the cards and tabulate results. Punched cards were later widely used as a means of entering data into computers.

Techniques for data storage and processing have evolved over the years. A brief history of database systems can be shown as in below infographic.

An image version can be also found at this link.