Chapter 4

Concurrency Control Techniques

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 Outline
Databases Concurrency Control
1. Purpose of Concurrency Control

2. Two-Phase locking

3. Limitations of CCMs

4. Index Locking

5. Lock Compatibility Matrix

6. Lock Granularity

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Database Concurrency Control

• 1 Purpose of Concurrency Control

– To enforce Isolation (through mutual exclusion) among conflicting transactions.

– To preserve database consistency through consistency preserving execution of

transactions.

– To resolve read-write and write-write conflicts.

• Example:

– In concurrent execution environment if T1 conflicts with T2 over a data item A, then the
existing concurrency control decides if T1 or T2 should get item A and if the other
transaction is rolled-back or waits.

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Database Concurrency Control
Locking Techniques

• Locking is an operation which secures

(a) permission to Read

(b) permission to Write a data item for a transaction.

• Example:

– Lock (X). Data item X is locked in behalf of the requesting transaction.

• Unlocking is an operation which removes these permissions from the data item.

– Example:

• Unlock (X): Data item X is made available to all other transactions.

– Lock and Unlock are Atomic operations. 4

Database Concurrency Control
• The basic rules for locking are:

– (a) shared (read)

– (b) exclusive (write)

• Shared mode: shared lock (X)

– More than one transaction can apply share lock on X for reading its value but no write lock can be
applied on X by any other transaction.

• Exclusive mode: Write lock (X)

– Only one write lock on X can exist at any time and no shared lock can be applied by any other transaction
on X. Read Write
• Conflict matrix: Read YES NO
Write NO NO
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Database Concurrency Control
Locks are used in the following way:
• Any transaction that needs to access a data item must first lock the item, requesting a
shared lock for read only access or an exclusive lock for both read and write access.
• If the item is not already locked by another transaction, the lock will be granted.
• If the item is currently locked, the DBMS determines whether the request is compatible
with the existing lock. If a shared lock is requested on an item that already has a shared
lock on it, the request will be granted; otherwise, the transaction must wait until the
existing lock is released.
• A transaction continues to hold a lock until it explicitly releases it either during execution
or when it terminates (aborts or commits). It is only when the exclusive lock has been
released that the effects of the write operation will be made visible to other transactions.
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Database Concurrency Control

• Lock Manager:

– Managing locks on data items.

• Lock table:

– Lock manager uses it to store the identification of the transaction locking a data item,
the data item, lock mode and pointer to the next data item locked. One simple way to
implement a lock table is through linked list.

Transaction ID Data item id lock mode Ptr to next data item

T1 X1 Read Next
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Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking (2PL)

• A transaction is said to follow 2PL protocol if Locking and Unlocking can be done in two
phases.
– Growing Phase: New locks on data items may be acquired but none can be released.

– Shrinking Phase: Existing locks may be released but no new locks can be acquired.

Two-Phase Locking Techniques: Essential components

• Database requires that all transactions should be well-formed. A transaction is well-formed if:

• It must lock the data item before it reads or writes to it.

• It must not lock an already locked data items and it must not try to unlock a free data
item.
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Database Concurrency Control

Two-Phase Locking Techniques: Essential components

• The following code performs the lock operation:

B: if LOCK (X) = 0 (*item is unlocked*)

then LOCK (X)  1 (*lock the item*)

else begin

wait (until lock (X) = 0) and

the lock manager wakes up the transaction);

goto B

end;

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Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking Techniques: Essential components

• The following code performs the unlock operation:

LOCK (X)  0 (*unlock the item*)

if any transactions are waiting then

wake up one of the waiting the transactions;

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Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking Techniques: Essential components

• The following code performs the read operation:

B: if LOCK (X) = “unlocked” then

begin LOCK (X)  “read-locked”;
no_of_reads (X)  1;
end
else if LOCK (X)  “read-locked” then
no_of_reads (X)  no_of_reads (X) +1
else begin wait (until LOCK (X) = “unlocked” and
the lock manager wakes up the transaction);
goto B
end;
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Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking Techniques: Essential components

• The following code performs the write lock operation:

B: if LOCK (X) = “unlocked” then

begin LOCK (X)  “write-locked”;

else begin

wait (until LOCK(X) = “unlocked”

and the lock manager wakes up the transaction);

go to B

end;
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Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking Techniques: Essential components
• The following code performs the unlock operation:
if LOCK (X) = “write-locked” then
begin LOCK (X)  “unlocked”;
wakes up one of the transactions, if any
end
else if LOCK (X)  “read-locked” then
begin
no_of_reads (X)  no_of_reads (X) -1
if no_of_reads (X) = 0 then
begin
LOCK (X) = “unlocked”;
wake up one of the transactions, if any
end
end;

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Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking Techniques: Essential components

• Lock conversion

– Lock upgrade: existing read lock to write lock

if Ti has a read-lock (X) and Tj has no read-lock (X) (i  j) then
convert read-lock (X) to write-lock (X)
else
force Ti to wait until Tj unlocks X

– Lock downgrade: existing write lock to read lock

Ti has a write-lock (X) (*no transaction can have any lock on X*)

convert write-lock (X) to read-lock (X) 14

Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking Techniques: The algorithm
• Two Phases:
– (a) Locking (Growing)
– (b) Unlocking (Shrinking).
• Locking (Growing) Phase:
– A transaction applies locks (read or write) on desired data items one at a time.
• Unlocking (Shrinking) Phase:
– A transaction unlocks its locked data items one at a time.
• Requirement:
– For a transaction these two phases must be mutually exclusive, that is, during locking
phase unlocking phase must not start and during unlocking phase locking phase must
not begin. 15
Database Concurrency Control

Two-Phase Locking Techniques: The algorithm

T1 T2 Result

read_lock (Y); read_lock (X); Initial values: X=20; Y=30

read_item (Y); read_item (X); Result of serial execution
unlock (Y); unlock (X); T1 followed by T2
write_lock (X); Write_lock (Y); X=50, Y=80.
read_item (X); read_item (Y); Result of serial execution
X:=X+Y; Y:=X+Y; T2 followed by T1
write_item (X); write_item (Y); X=70, Y=50
unlock (X); unlock (Y);
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Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking Techniques: The algorithm
T1 T2 Result
read_lock (Y); X=50; Y=50
read_item (Y); Nonserializable because it
unlock (Y); violated two-phase policy.
read_lock (X);
read_item (X);
Time
unlock (X);
write_lock (Y);
read_item (Y);
Y:=X+Y;
write_item (Y);
unlock (Y);
write_lock (X);
read_item (X);
X:=X+Y;
write_item (X);
unlock (X);

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Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking Techniques: The algorithm

T’1 T’2

read_lock (Y); read_lock (X); T1 and T2 follow two-phase

read_item (Y); read_item (X); policy but they are subject to
write_lock (X); Write_lock (Y); deadlock, which must be
unlock (Y); unlock (X); dealt with.
read_item (X); read_item (Y);
X:=X+Y; Y:=X+Y;
write_item (X); write_item (Y);
unlock (X); unlock (Y);

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Database Concurrency Control
Two-Phase Locking Techniques: The algorithm
• Two-phase policy generates two locking algorithms
– (a) Basic
– (b) Conservative
• Basic:
– Transaction locks data items incrementally. This may cause deadlock which is dealt with.
• Conservative:
– Prevents deadlock by locking all desired data items before transaction begins execution.
• Strict:
– A more stricter version of Basic algorithm where unlocking is performed after a transaction
terminates (commits or aborts and rolled-back). This is the most commonly used two-phase
locking algorithm.
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Database Concurrency Control
Dealing with Deadlock and Starvation

– Deadlock

T’1 T’2

read_lock (Y); T1 and T2 did follow two-phase

read_item (Y); policy but they are deadlock
read_lock (X);
read_item (Y);
write_lock (X);
(waits for X) write_lock (Y);
(waits for Y)

– Deadlock (T’1 and T’2)

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Database Concurrency Control
Dealing with Deadlock and Starvation

• Deadlock prevention

– A transaction locks all data items it refers to before it begins execution.

– This way of locking prevents deadlock since a transaction never waits for a data item.

– The conservative two-phase locking uses this approach.

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Database Concurrency Control

Dealing with Deadlock and Starvation

• Deadlock detection and resolution

– In this approach, deadlocks are allowed to happen. The scheduler maintains a wait-
for-graph for detecting cycle. If a cycle exists, then one transaction involved in the
cycle is selected (victim) and rolled-back.

– A wait-for-graph is created using the lock table. As soon as a transaction is blocked,

it is added to the graph. When a chain like: Ti waits for Tj waits for Tk waits for Ti or
Tj occurs, then this creates a cycle. Some of the transactions causing the deadlock
must be aborted.

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Database Concurrency Control

Dealing with Deadlock and Starvation

• Deadlock avoidance

– There are many variations of two-phase locking algorithm.

– Some avoid deadlock by not letting the cycle to complete.

– That is as soon as the algorithm discovers that blocking a transaction is likely to

create a cycle, it rolls back the transaction.

– Wound-Wait and Wait-Die algorithms use timestamps to avoid deadlocks by rolling-

back victim.

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Database Concurrency Control
Wound-Wait and Wait-Die algorithms
• wound-wait:
– When an older transaction tries to lock a DB element that has been locked by
a younger transaction, it wounds the younger transaction.
– When a younger transaction tries to lock a DB element that has been locked by
an older transaction, it waits.
• wait-die:
– When an older transaction tries to lock a DB element that has been locked by
a younger transaction, it waits.
– When a younger transaction tries to lock a DB element that has been locked by
an older transaction, it dies.
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Database Concurrency Control
Assume that Tn requests a lock held by Tk. The following table summarizes the actions
taken for wait-die and wound-wait scheme:

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Database Concurrency Control
Dealing with Deadlock and Starvation

• Starvation

– Starvation occurs when a particular transaction consistently waits or restarted and

never gets a chance to proceed further.

– In a deadlock resolution it is possible that the same transaction may consistently be

selected as victim and rolled-back.

– This limitation is inherent in all priority based scheduling mechanisms.

– In Wound-Wait scheme a younger transaction may always be wounded (aborted) by

a long running older transaction which may create starvation.

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Database Concurrency Control
Timestamp based concurrency control algorithm

• Timestamp

– A monotonically increasing variable (integer) indicating the age of an operation or a

transaction. A unique identifier created by the DBMS that indicates the relative
starting time of a transaction.

– uses timestamp to serialize the execution of concurrent transactions.

– A larger timestamp value indicates a more recent event or operation.

– Locking methods generally prevent conflicts by making transactions wait.

– with timestamp methods, there is no waiting: transactions involved in conflict are

simply rolled back and restarted.
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Database Concurrency Control
Timestamping

• A concurrency control protocol that orders transactions in such a way that older transactions,
transactions with smaller timestamps, get priority in the event of conflict.

• Besides timestamps for transactions, there are timestamps for data items: a read_timestamp
and write_timestamp.

• With timestamping, if a transaction attempts to read or write a data item, then the read or
write is only allowed to proceed if the last update on that data item was carried out by an older
transaction.

• Otherwise, the transaction requesting the read/write is restarted and given a new timestamp.
New timestamps must be assigned to restarted transactions to prevent their being continually
aborted and restarted.
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Database Concurrency Control
Timestamp based concurrency control algorithm

Basic Timestamp Ordering

• For a transaction T with timestamp ts(T), the timestamp ordering protocol works as
follows
1. Transaction T issues a write_item(X) operation:
a. If read_TS(X) > TS(T) or if write_TS(X) > TS(T), then an younger transaction has already read
the data item so abort and roll-back T and reject the operation.
b. If the condition in part (a) does not exist, then execute write_item(X) of T and set write_TS(X)
to TS(T).
2. Transaction T issues a read_item(X) operation:
a. If write_TS(X) > TS(T), then an younger transaction has already written to the data item so
abort and roll-back T and reject the operation.
b. If write_TS(X)  TS(T), then execute read_item(X) of T and set read_TS(X) to the larger of TS(T)
and the current read_TS(X).

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Database Concurrency Control
Timestamp based concurrency control algorithm

Strict Timestamp Ordering

1. Transaction T issues a write_item(X) operation:

• If TS(T) > read_TS(X), then delay T until the transaction T’ that wrote or read X
has terminated (committed or aborted).

2. Transaction T issues a read_item(X) operation:

• If TS(T) > write_TS(X), then delay T until the transaction T’ that wrote or read X
has terminated (committed or aborted).

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Database Concurrency Control
Timestamp based concurrency control algorithm

Thomas’s Write Rule

The extension, known as Thomas’s write rule, modifies the checks for a write operation by
transaction T as follows:

– If read_TS(X) > TS(T) then abort and roll-back T and reject the operation.

– If write_TS(X) > TS(T), then just ignore the write operation and continue execution.
This is because the most recent writes counts in case of two consecutive writes.

– If the conditions given in 1 and 2 above do not occur, then execute write_item(X) of
T and set write_TS(X) to TS(T).

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Database Concurrency Control
Multiversion concurrency control techniques
– This approach maintains a number of versions of a data item and allocates the right version
to a read operation of a transaction. Thus, unlike other mechanisms a read operation in
this mechanism is never rejected.
– In multiversion concurrency control, each write operation creates a new version of a data
item while retaining the old version.
– When a transaction attempts to read a data item, the system selects one of the versions that
ensures serializability.
– Side effect:
• Significantly more storage (RAM and disk) is required to maintain multiple versions. To
check unlimited growth of versions, a garbage collection is run when some criteria is
satisfied. 32
Database Concurrency Control
Multiversion technique based on timestamp ordering

– Assume X1, X2, …, Xn are the version of a data item X created by a write operation of
transactions. With each Xi a read_TS (read timestamp) and a write_TS (write
timestamp) are associated.

– read_TS(Xi): The read timestamp of Xi is the largest of all the timestamps of

transactions that have successfully read version Xi.

– write_TS(Xi): The write timestamp of Xi that wrote the value of version Xi.

– A new version of Xi is created only by a write operation.

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Database Concurrency Control
Multiversion technique based on timestamp ordering

To ensure serializability, the following two rules are used.

– If transaction T issues write_item (X) and version i of X has the highest write_TS(Xi) of all
versions of X that is also less than or equal to TS(T), and read _TS(Xi) > TS(T), then abort
and roll-back T; otherwise create a new version Xi and read_TS(X) = write_TS(Xj) = TS(T).

– If transaction T issues read_item (X), find the version i of X that has the highest
write_TS(Xi) of all versions of X that is also less than or equal to TS(T), then return the
value of Xi to T, and set the value of read _TS(Xi) to the largest of TS(T) and the current
read_TS(Xi).

– Rule 2 guarantees that a read will never be rejected

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Database Concurrency Control
Optimistic Techniques
Validation (Optimistic) Concurrency Control Schemes
• In this technique only at the time of commit serializability is checked and transactions are
aborted in case of non-serializable schedules.
• Three phases:
1. Read phase
2. Validation phase
3. Write phase
1. Read phase:
– This extends from the start of the transaction until immediately before the commit.
– A transaction can read values of all data items it needs from the database and stores
them in local variables.
– However, updates are applied only to local copies (versions) of the data items (in
database cache).

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Database Concurrency Control
Validation (Optimistic) Concurrency Control Schemes

2. Validation phase: Serializability is checked before transactions write their updates to the
database.
– This phase for Ti checks that, for each transaction Tj that is either committed or is in its validation
phase, one of the following conditions holds:
• Tj completes its write phase before Ti starts its read phase.
• Ti starts its write phase after Tj completes its write phase, and the read_set of Ti has no items in
common with the write_set of Tj
• Both the read_set and write_set of Ti have no items in common with the write_set of Tj, and Tj
completes its read phase.
• When validating Ti, the first condition is checked first for each transaction Tj, since (1) is the
simplest condition to check. If (1) is false then (2) is checked and if (2) is false then (3 ) is checked.
If none of these conditions holds, the validation fails and Ti is aborted.
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Database Concurrency Control

Validation (Optimistic) Concurrency Control Schemes

3. Write phase: On a successful validation transactions’ updates are applied to the

database; otherwise, transactions are restarted.

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Database Concurrency Control
Granularity of data items and Multiple Granularity Locking
• A lockable unit of data defines its granularity. Granularity can be coarse (entire database) or it
can be fine (a tuple or an attribute of a relation).
• Data item granularity significantly affects concurrency control performance. Thus, the degree
of concurrency is low for coarse granularity and high for fine granularity.
• Example of data item granularity:
1. A field of a database record (an attribute of a tuple)
2. A database record (a tuple or a relation)
3. A disk block
4. An entire file
5. The entire database

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Database Concurrency Control
Granularity of data items and Multiple Granularity Locking
• The following diagram illustrates a hierarchy of granularity from coarse (database) to
fine (record).

DB

f1 f2

p11 p12 ... p1n p11 p12 ... p1n

r111 ... r11j r111 ... r11j r111 ... r11j r111 ... r11j r111 ... r11j r111 ... r11j

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43
Database Concurrency Control
Granularity of data items and Multiple Granularity Locking
• To manage such hierarchy, in addition to read and write, three additional locking
modes, called intention lock modes are defined:
– Intention-shared (IS): indicates that a shared lock(s) will be requested on some
descendent nodes(s).
– Intention-exclusive (IX): indicates that an exclusive lock(s) will be requested on
some descendent node(s).
– Shared-intention-exclusive (SIX): indicates that the current node is locked in
shared mode but an exclusive lock(s) will be requested on some descendent
nodes(s).

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Database Concurrency Control
Granularity of data items and Multiple Granularity Locking
• These locks are applied using the following compatibility matrix:

IS IX S SIX X
IS yes yes yes yes no Intention-shared (IS
IX yes yes no no no Intention-exclusive (IX)
yes no yes no no Shared-intention-exclusive
S (SIX)
SIX yes no no no no
X no no no no no

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Database Concurrency Control

Granularity of data items and Multiple Granularity Locking

• The set of rules which must be followed for producing serializable schedule are

1. The lock compatibility must adhered to.

2. The root of the tree must be locked first, in any mode..

3. A node N can be locked by a transaction T in S or IX mode only if the parent node is

already locked by T in either IS or IX mode.

4. A node N can be locked by T in X, IX, or SIX mode only if the parent of N is already locked
by T in either IX or SIX mode.

5. T can lock a node only if it has not unlocked any node (to enforce 2PL policy).

6. T can unlock a node, N, only if none of the children of N are currently locked by T.
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Database Concurrency Control
Granularity of data items and Multiple Granularity Locking: An example of a serializable
execution:
T1 T2 T3
IX(db)
IX(f1)
IX(db)
IS(db)
IS(f1)
IS(p11)
IX(p11)
X(r111)
IX(f1)
X(p12)
S(r11j)
IX(f2)
IX(p21)
IX(r211)
Unlock (r211)
Unlock (p21)
Unlock (f2)
S(f2)
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Database Concurrency Control

• Granularity of data items and Multiple Granularity Locking: An example of a

serializable execution (continued):

T1 T2 T3
unlock(p12)
unlock(f1)
unlock(db)
unlock(r111)
unlock(p11)
unlock(f1)
unlock(db)
unlock (r111j)
unlock (p11)
unlock (f1)
unlock(f2)
unlock(db)

Slide 18- 48
Using Locks for Concurrency Control in Indexes
• Two-phase locking can also be applied to indexes, where the nodes of an index
correspond to disk pages.
• However, holding locks on index pages until the shrinking phase of 2PL could cause an
undue amount of transaction blocking because searching an index always starts at the
root.
• Therefore, if a transaction wants to insert a record (write operation), the root would be
locked in exclusive mode, so all other conflicting lock requests for the index must wait
until the transaction enters its shrinking phase.
• This blocks all other transactions from accessing the index, so in practice other
approaches to locking an index must be used.

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Optimistic vs. pessimistic Concurrency Control

• Locking is pessimistic:

– Assumption: during operation li of transaction Ti on a data item Q a (potentially)

conflicting operation lj of transaction Tj will access the same data item Q .

– Has to be avoided by locking Q before accessing Q

• An optimistic strategy would be:

– Perform all operations on a copy of the data. Check at the end (before commit) if
there were any conflicts.

– If no: commit, else abort the transaction (rollback, or resolve conflicts)

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