Chapter 10

Transaction Management and

Concurrency Control
 Learning Objectives

• After completing this chapter, you will be able to:

• Describe the database transaction management process
• Identify the four properties of a database transaction
• Explain concurrency control and its role in maintaining database integrity
• Describe how locking methods are used for concurrency control
• Describe how stamping methods are used for concurrency control
• Describe how optimistic methods are used for concurrency control
• List and explain the ANSI levels of transaction isolation
• Describe the role of database recovery management in maintaining database integrity

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 What is a Transaction?

• A logical unit of work that must be entirely completed or aborted

• Consists of:
- SELECT statement
- Series of related UPDATE statements
- Series of INSERT statements
- Combination of SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT statements

• Consistent database state

• All data integrity constraints are satisfied
• Must begin with the database in a known consistent state to ensure consistency
• Most are formed by two or more database requests
- Database requests: equivalent of a single SQL statement in an application program or
transaction

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 Evaluating Transaction Results

• Not all transactions update the database

• SQL code represents a transaction because it accesses the database
• Improper or incomplete transactions can have devastating effect on database
integrity
• Users can define enforceable constraints based on business rules
• Other integrity rules are automatically enforced by the DBMS

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 Transaction Properties

• Atomicity
• All operations of a transaction must be completed; if not the transaction is aborted
• Consistency
• Permanence of database’s consistent state
• Isolation
• Data used during transaction cannot be used by second transaction until the first is
completed
• Durability
• Ensures that once transactions are committed they cannot be undone or lost
• Serializability
• Ensures that the schedule for the concurrent execution of several transactions should
yield consistent results

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 Transaction Management with SQL

• SQL statements that provide transaction support:

• COMMIT
• ROLLBACK
• Transaction sequence must continue until one of four events occur:
• COMMIT statement is reached
• ROLLBACK statement is reached
• End of program is reached
• Program is abnormally terminated

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 The Transaction Log

• Keeps track of all transactions that update the database

• DBMS uses the information stored in a log for (a):
- Recovery requirement triggered by a ROLLBACK statement
- Program’s abnormal termination
- System failure

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 Concurrency Control

• Coordination of the simultaneous transactions execution in a multiuser

database system
• Objective: ensures serializability of transactions in a multiuser database environment
• Important because the simultaneous execution of transactions over a shared
database can create several data integrity and consistency problems
• Three main problems are lost updates, uncommitted data, and inconsistent retrievals

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 Problems in Concurrency Control

• Lost update
• Occurs in two concurrent transactions when:
- Same data element is updated
- One of the updates is lost

• Uncommitted data
• Occurs when:
- Two transactions are executed concurrently
- First transaction is rolled back after the second transaction has already accessed uncommitted
data

• Inconsistent retrievals
• Occurs when:
- A transaction accesses data before and after one or more other transactions finish working
with such data

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 The Scheduler

• Establishes the order in which the operations are executed within concurrent
transactions
• Interleaves the execution of database operations to ensure serializability and isolation
of transactions
• Bases actions on concurrent control algorithms
• Determines appropriate order
• Creates serialization schedule
• Serializable schedule: interleaved execution of transactions yields the same results as
the serial execution of the transactions

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 Concurrency Control with Locking Methods

• Locking methods facilitate isolation of data items used in concurrently

executing transactions
• Lock: guarantees exclusive use of a data item to a current transaction
• Pessimistic locking: use of locks based on the assumption that conflict between
transactions is likely
• Lock manager: responsible for assigning and policing the locks used by the
transactions

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 Lock Granularity (1 of 5)

• Indicates the level of lock use

• Database-level lock
• Table-level lock
• Page-level lock
- Page or diskpage: directly addressable section of a disk
• Row-level lock
• Field-level lock

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Lock Granularity (2 of 5)

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Lock Granularity (3 of 5)

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Lock Granularity (4 of 5)

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Lock Granularity (5 of 5)

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 Lock Types (1 of 2)

• Binary lock
• Two states: locked (1) and unlocked (0)
- If an object is locked by a transaction, no other transaction can use that object
- If an object is unlocked, any transaction can lock the object for its use

• Exclusive lock
• Access is reserved for the transaction that locked the object
• Shared lock
• Concurrent transactions are granted read access on the basis of a common lock

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 Lock Types (2 of 2)

• Problems using locks

• Resulting transaction schedule might not be serializable
• Schedule might create deadlocks

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 Two-Phase Locking to Ensure Serializability (1 of 3)

• Defines how transactions acquire and relinquish locks

• Guarantees serializability but does not prevent deadlocks
• Phases
• Growing phase: transaction acquires all required locks without unlocking any data
• Shrinking phase: transaction releases all locks and cannot obtain any new lock

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 Two-Phase Locking to Ensure Serializability (2 of 3)

• Governing rules
• Two transactions cannot have conflicting locks
• No unlock operation can precede a lock operation in the same transaction
• No data are affected until all locks are obtained

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Two-Phase Locking to Ensure Serializability (3 of 3)

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 Deadlocks

• Occur when two transactions wait indefinitely for each other to unlock data
• Also known as deadly embrace
• Control techniques
• Deadlock prevention
• Deadlock detection
• Deadlock avoidance
• Choice of deadlock control method depends on database environment

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 Concurrency Control with Time Stamping Methods (1 of 2)

• Time stamping assigns global, unique time stamp to each transaction

• Produces explicit order in which transactions are submitted to DBMS
• Properties
• Uniqueness: ensures no equal time stamp values exist
• Monotonicity: ensures time stamp values always increases

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 Concurrency Control with Time Stamping Methods (2 of 2)

• Disadvantages
• Each value stored in the database requires two additional stamp fields
• Increases memory needs
• Increases the database’s processing overhead
• Demands a lot of system resources

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 Wait/Die and Wound/Wait Schemes (1 of 2)

• Wait/die
• A concurrency control scheme in which an older transaction must wait for the
younger transaction to complete and release the locks before requesting the locks
itself
- Otherwise, the newer transaction dies and is rescheduled

• Wound/wait
• A concurrency control scheme in which an older transaction can request the lock,
preempt the younger transaction, and reschedule it
- Otherwise, the newer transaction waits until the older transaction finishes

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 Wait/Die and Wound/Wait Schemes (2 of 2)

Wait/Die and
Wound/Wait
Concurrency Control
Schemes
Transaction Transaction Wait/Die Scheme Wound/Wait Scheme
Requesting Lock Owning Lock
T1 (11548789) T2 (19562545) • T1 waits until T2 is • T1 preempts (rolls back)
completed and T2 T2.
releases its locks. • T2 is rescheduled using
the same time stamp.
T2 (19562545) T1 (11548789) • T2 dies (rolls back). • T2 waits until T1 is
• T2 is rescheduled completed and T1
using the same time releases its locks.
stamp.

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 Concurrency Control with Optimistic Methods (1 of 2)

• Optimistic approach: based on the assumption that the majority of database

operations do not conflict
• Does not require locking or time stamping techniques
• Transaction is executed without restrictions until it is committed
• Phases of optimistic approach
• Read
• Validation
• Write

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 Concurrency Control with Optimistic Methods (2 of 2)

• Read phase
• Transaction:
- Reads the database
- Executes the needed computations
- Makes the updates to a private copy of the database values

• Validation phase
• Transaction is validated to ensure that the changes made will not affect the integrity
and consistency of the database
• Write phase
• Changes are permanently applied to the database

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 ANSI Levels of Transaction Isolation (1 of 2)

• The ANSI SQL standard (1992) defines transaction management based on

transaction isolation levels
• Transaction isolation levels refer to the degree to which transaction data is “protected
or isolated” from other concurrent transactions
• Transaction isolation levels are described by the type of “reads” that a
transaction allows or not
• Dirty read: transaction can read data that is not yet committed
• Nonrepeatable read: transaction reads a given row at time t1, and then it reads the
same row at time t2, yielding different results
- The original row may have been updated or deleted
• Phantom read: transaction executes a query at time t1, and then it runs the same
query at time t2, yielding additional rows that satisfy the query

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 ANSI Levels of Transaction Isolation (2 of 2)

• Read Uncommitted will read uncommitted data from other transactions

• Increases transaction performance but at the cost of data consistency
• Read Committed forces transactions to read only committed data
• Default mode of operation for most databases
• Repeatable Read isolation level ensures that queries return consistent results
• Uses shared locks to ensure other transactions do not update a row after the original
query reads it
• Serializable isolation level is the most restrictive level defined by the ANSI SQL
standard
• Deadlocks are still always possible

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 Database Recovery Management

• Database recovery: restores database from a given state to a previously

consistent state
• Recovery transactions are based on the atomic transaction property
• All portions of a transaction must be treated as a single logical unit of work
- If transaction operation cannot be completed:
• Transaction must be aborted
• Changes to database must be rolled back

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 Transaction Recovery (1 of 3)

• Concepts that affect the recovery process

• Write-ahead log protocol
- Ensures that transaction logs are always written before the data are updated
• Redundant transaction logs
- Ensure that a physical disk failure will not impair the DBMS’s ability to recover data
• Buffers
- Temporary storage areas in a primary memory used to speed up disk operations
• Checkpoints
- Allows DBMS to write all its updated buffers in memory to disk

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 Transaction Recovery (2 of 3)

• Techniques used in transaction recovery procedures

• Deferred-write technique or deferred update
- Transaction operations do not immediately update the physical database
- Only transaction log is updated
• Write-through technique or immediate update
- Database is immediately updated by transaction operations during transaction’s execution

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 Transaction Recovery (3 of 3)

• Recovery process steps

• Identify the last check point in the transaction log
- If transaction was committed before the last check point nothing needs to be done
- If transaction was committed after the last check point the transaction log is used to redo the
transaction
- If transaction had a ROLLBACK operation after the last check point the DBMS uses the
transaction log records to ROLLBACK or undo the operations, using the “before” values in the
transaction log

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 Summary (1 of 2)

• A transaction is a sequence of database operations that access the database

• Transactions have four main properties: atomicity, consistency, isolation, and
durability
• SQL provides support for transactions through the use of two statements:
COMMIT, which saves changes to disk, and ROLLBACK, which restores the
previous database state
• Concurrency control coordinates the simultaneous execution of transactions
• A lock guarantees unique access to a data item by a transaction
• Serializability of schedules is guaranteed through the use of two-phase locking

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 Summary (2 of 2)

• Concurrency control with time stamping methods assigns a unique time stamp
to each transaction and schedules the execution of conflicting transactions in
time stamp order
• Concurrency control with optimistic methods assumes that the majority of
database transactions do not conflict and that transactions are executed
concurrently, using private, temporary copies of the data
• Database recovery restores the database from a given state to a previous
consistent state

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