DBMS – II Unit- 2

Transaction Management

Transactions are a set of operations used to perform a logical set of work. It is the
bundle of all the instructions of a logical operation. A transaction usually means
that the data in the database has changed. One of the major uses of DBMS is to
protect the user’s data from system failures. It is done by ensuring that all the
data is restored to a consistent state when the computer is restarted after a
crash. The transaction is any one execution of the user program in a DBMS. One
of the important properties of the transaction is that it contains a finite number of
steps. Executing the same program multiple times will generate multiple
transactions.
Example: Consider the following example of transaction operations to be
performed to withdraw cash from an ATM vestibule.

Steps for ATM Transaction

1. Transaction Start.
2. Insert your ATM card.
3. Select a language for your transaction.
4. Select the Savings Account option.
5. Enter the amount you want to withdraw.
6. Enter your secret pin.
7. Wait for some time for processing.
8. Collect your Cash.
9. Transaction Completed.

A transaction can include the following basic database access operation.

 Read/Access data (R): Accessing the database item from disk (where the
database stored data) to memory variable.
 Write/Change data (W): Write the data item from the memory variable to the
disk.
 Commit: Commit is a transaction control language that is used to permanently
save the changes done in a transaction
Example: Transfer of 50₹ from Account A to Account B. Initially A= 500₹, B= 800₹.
This data is brought to RAM from Hard Disk.

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R(A) -- 500 // Accessed from RAM.

A = A-50 // Deducting 50₹ from A.
W(A)--450 // Updated in RAM.
R(B) -- 800 // Accessed from RAM.
B=B+50 // 50₹ is added to B's Account.
W(B) --850 // Updated in RAM.
commit // The data in RAM is taken back to Hard Disk.

Stages of Transaction

Note: The updated value of Account A = 450₹ and Account B = 850₹.

All instructions before committing come under a partially committed state and
are stored in RAM. When the commit is read the data is fully accepted and is
stored on a Hard Disk.
If the transaction is failed anywhere before committing we have to go back and
start from the beginning. We can’t continue from the same state. This is known
as Roll Back.

Desirable Properties of Transaction (ACID Properties)

For a transaction to be performed in DBMS, it must possess several properties
often called ACID properties.
 A – Atomicity
 C – Consistency
 I – Isolation
 D – Durability

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The transaction has four properties. These are used to maintain consistency in a
database, before and after the transaction.
Property of Transaction:
 Atomicity
 Consistency
 Isolation
 Durability
Atomicity
 States that all operations of the transaction take place at once if not, the
transactions are aborted.
 There is no midway, i.e., the transaction cannot occur partially. Each
transaction is treated as one unit and either run to completion or is not
executed at all.
 Atomicity involves the following two operations:
 Abort: If a transaction aborts, then all the changes made are not visible.
 Commit: If a transaction commits then all the changes made are visible.
Consistency
 The integrity constraints are maintained so that the database is consistent
before and after the transaction.
 The execution of a transaction will leave a database in either its prior stable
state or anew stable state.
 The consistent property of database states that every transaction sees a
consistent database instance.
 The transaction is used to transform the database from one consistent state to
another consistent state.
Isolation
 It shows that the data which is used at the time of execution of a transaction
cannot be used by the second transaction until the first one is completed.
 In isolation, if the transaction T1 is being executed and using the data item X,
then that data item can’t be accessed by any other transaction T2 until the
transaction T1ends.
 The concurrency control subsystem of the DBMS enforced the isolation
property
Durability
 The durability property is used to indicate the performance of the database’s
consistent state. It states that the transaction made the permanent changes.

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 DBMS – II Unit- 2

 They cannot be lost by the erroneous operation of a faulty transaction or by

the system failure. When a transaction is completed, then the database
reaches a state known as the consistent state. That consistent state cannot be
lost, even in the event of a system’s failure.
 The recovery subsystem of the DBMS has the responsibility of Durability
property.

Implementing of Atomicity and Durability

The recovery-management component of a database system can support
atomicity and durability by a variety of schemes.
E.g. the shadow-database scheme:
Shadow copy
 In the shadow-copy scheme, a transaction that wants to update the database
first creates a complete copy of the database.
 All updates are done on the new database copy, leaving the original copy, the
shadow copy, untouched. If at any point the transaction has to be aborted, the
system merely deletes the new copy. The old copy of the database has not
been affected.
 This scheme is based on making copies of the database, called shadow copies,
assumes that only one transaction is active at a time.
 The scheme also assumes that the database is simply a file on disk. A pointer
called db pointer is maintained on disk; it points to the current copy of the
database.

Transaction States
Transactions can be implemented using SQL queries and Servers. In the diagram,
you can see how transaction states work.

Transaction States
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These are different types of Transaction States :

1. Active State – When the instructions of the transaction are running then the
transaction is in active state. If all the ‘read and write’ operations are performed
without any error then it goes to the “partially committed state”; if any
instruction fails, it goes to the “failed state”.
2. Partially Committed – After completion of all the read and write operation
the changes are made in main memory or local buffer. If the changes are made
permanent on the DataBase then the state will change to “committed state” and
in case of failure it will go to the “failed state”.
3. Failed State – When any instruction of the transaction fails, it goes to the
“failed state” or if failure occurs in making a permanent change of data
on Database.
4. Aborted State – After having any type of failure the transaction goes from
“failed state” to “aborted state” and since in previous states, the changes are
only made to local buffer or main memory and hence these changes are deleted
or rolled-back.
5. Committed State – It is the state when the changes are made permanent on
the Data Base and the transaction is complete and therefore terminated in the
“terminated state”.
6. Terminated State – If there isn’t any roll-back or the transaction comes from
the “committed state”, then the system is consistent and ready for new
transaction and the old transaction is terminated.
Transaction Isolation Levels in DBMS
Some other transaction may also have used value produced by the failed
transaction. So we also have to rollback those transactions.
The SQL standard defines four isolation levels:
 Read Uncommitted: Read Uncommitted is the lowest isolation level. In this
level,one transaction may read not yet committed changes made by other
transaction, therebyallowing dirty reads. In this level, transactions are not
isolated from each other.
 Read Committed: This isolation level guarantees that any data read is
committed atthe moment it is read. Thus it does not allows dirty read. The
transaction holds a read orwrite lock on the current row, and thus prevent
other transactions from reading,updating or deleting it.
 Repeatable Read: This is the most restrictive isolation level. The transaction
holdsead locks on all rows it references and writes locks on all rows it inserts,
updates.deletes. Since other transaction cannot read, update or delete these

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 DBMS – II Unit- 2

rows,consequently it
avoids non-repeatable read.
 Serializable: This is the Highest isolation level. A serializable execution is
guaranteed to be serializable. Serializable execution is defined to be an
execution of operations in which concurrently executing transactions appears
to be serially executing.

Failure Classification
To find that where the problem has occurred, we generalize a failure into the
following categories:
 Transaction failure
 System crash
 Disk failure
1. Transaction failure
The transaction failure occurs when it fails to execute or when it reaches a point
from where it can’t go any further. If a few transactions or process is hurt, then
this is called as transaction failure.
Reasons for a transaction failure could be –
1. Logical errors: If a transaction cannot complete due to some code error or an
internal error condition, then the logical error occurs.
2. Syntax error: It occurs where the DBMS itself terminates an active transaction
because the database system is not able to execute it. For example, The system
aborts an active transaction, in case of deadlock or resource unavailability.
2. System Crash
System failure can occur due to power failure or other hardware or software
failure. Example: Operating system error.
 Fail-stop assumption: In the system crash, non-volatile storage is assumed not
to be corrupted.
3. Disk Failure
 It occurs where hard-disk drives or storage drives used to fail frequently. It was
a common problem in the early days of technology evolution.
 Disk failure occurs due to the formation of bad sectors, disk head crash, and
unreachability to the disk or any other failure, which destroy all or part of disk
storage.

Serializability

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It is an important aspect of Transactions. In simple meaning, you can say that

serializability is a way to check whether two transactions working on a database
are maintaining database consistency or not.
It is of two types:
1. Conflict Serializability
2. View Serializability
Schedule
Schedule, as the name suggests is a process of lining the transactions and
executing them one by one. When there are multiple transactions that are
running in a concurrent manner and the order of operation is needed to be set so
that the operations do not overlap each other, Scheduling is brought into play and
the transactions are timed accordingly.
It is of two types:
1. Serial Schedule
2. Non-Serial Schedule

Uses of Transaction Management

 The DBMS is used to schedule the access of data concurrently. It means that
the user can access multiple data from the database without being interfered
with by each other. Transactions are used to manage concurrency.
 It is also used to satisfy ACID properties.
 It is used to solve Read/Write Conflicts.
 It is used to implement Recoverability, Serializability, and Cascading.
 Transaction Management is also used for Concurrency Control Protocols and
the Locking of data.
Advantages of using a Transaction
 Maintains a consistent and valid database after each transaction.
 Makes certain that updates to the database don’t affect its dependability or
accuracy.
 Enables simultaneous use of numerous users without sacrificing data
consistency.
Disadvantages of using a Transaction
 It may be difficult to change the information within the transaction database by
end-users.
 We need to always roll back and start from the beginning rather than continue
from the previous state.

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