Chapter 15: Transactions

Transaction Concept
Transaction State
Implementation of Atomicity and Durability
Concurrent Executions
Serializability
Recoverability
Implementation of Isolation
Transaction Definition in SQL
Testing for Serializability.
Transaction Concept
A transaction is a unit of program execution that
accesses and possibly updates various data items.
A transaction must see a consistent database.
During transaction execution the database may be
inconsistent.
When the transaction is committed, the database must
be consistent.
Two main issues to deal with:
Failures of various kinds, such as hardware failures and
system crashes
Concurrent execution of multiple transactions
ACID Properties
Atomicity. Either all operations of the transaction are
properly reflected in the database or none are.
Consistency. Execution of a transaction in isolation
preserves the consistency of the database.
Isolation. Although multiple transactions may execute
concurrently, each transaction must be unaware of other
concurrently executing transactions. Intermediate
transaction results must be hidden from other concurrently
executed transactions.
That is, for every pair of transactions T
i
and T
j
, it appears to T
i

that either T
j
, finished execution before T
i
started, or T
j
started
execution after T
i
finished.
Durability. After a transaction completes successfully, the
changes it has made to the database persist, even if there
are system failures.
To preserve integrity of data, the database system must ensure:
Example of Fund Transfer
Transaction to transfer $50 from account A to account B:

1. read(A)
2. A := A 50
3. write(A)
4. read(B)
5. B := B + 50
6. write(B)
Example of Fund Transfer
Atomicity requirement if the transaction fails after step 3 and before step
6, the system should ensure that its updates are not reflected in the
database, else an inconsistency will result.
Consistency requirement the sum of A and B is unchanged by the
execution of the transaction.
Isolation requirement if between steps 3 and 6, another transaction is
allowed to access the partially updated database, it will see an inconsistent
database (the sum A + B will be less than it should be).
Can be ensured trivially by running transactions serially, that is one after
the other. However, executing multiple transactions concurrently has
significant benefits.
Durability requirement once the user has been notified that the
transaction has completed (i.e., the transfer of the $50 has taken place),
the updates to the database by the transaction must persist despite
failures.

Transaction State
Active, the initial state; the transaction stays in this
state while it is executing
Partially committed, after the final statement has
been executed.
Failed, after the discovery that normal execution can
no longer proceed.
Aborted, after the transaction has been rolled back
and the database restored to its state prior to the start
of the transaction. Two options after it has been
aborted:
restart the transaction only if no internal logical error
kill the transaction
Committed, after successful completion.
Transaction State
Implementation of Atomicity and
Durability
The recovery-management component of a database system
implements the support for atomicity and durability.
The shadow-database scheme:
assume that only one transaction is active at a time.
a pointer called db_pointer always points to the current consistent copy
of the database.
all updates are made on a shadow copy of the database, and
db_pointer is made to point to the updated shadow copy only after the
transaction reaches partial commit and all updated pages have been
flushed to disk.
in case transaction fails, old consistent copy pointed to by db_pointer
can be used, and the shadow copy can be deleted.
Implementation of Atomicity and Durability
Assumes disks to not fail
Useful for text editors, but extremely inefficient for large
databases: executing a single transaction requires copying
the entire database.
The shadow-database scheme:
Concurrent Executions
Multiple transactions are allowed to run concurrently in the system.
Advantages are:
increased processor and disk utilization, leading to better
transaction throughput: one transaction can be using the CPU while
another is reading from or writing to the disk
reduced average response time for transactions: short transactions
need not wait behind long ones.

Concurrency control schemes mechanisms to achieve isolation,
i.e., to control the interaction among the concurrent transactions in
order to prevent them from destroying the consistency of the
database
Schedules
Schedules sequences that indicate the
chronological order in which instructions of
concurrent transactions are executed
a schedule for a set of transactions must
consist of all instructions of those
transactions
must preserve the order in which the
instructions appear in each individual
transaction.
Let T1 transfer $50 from A to B, and T2
transfer 10% of the balance from A to B.
The following is a serial schedule
(Schedule 1 in the text), in which T1 is
followed by T2.
Example Schedule
Let T
1
and T
2
be the transactions
defined previously. The following
schedule (Schedule 3 in the text) is not a
serial schedule, but it is equivalent to
Schedule 1.

In both Schedule 1 and 3, the sum
A + B is preserved.
Example Schedules
The following concurrent schedule (Schedule 4 in the text) does not
preserve the value of the the sum A + B.

Serializability
Basic Assumption Each transaction preserves database consistency.
Thus serial execution of a set of transactions preserves database
consistency.
A (possibly concurrent) schedule is serializable if it is equivalent to a
serial schedule. Different forms of schedule equivalence give rise to the
notions of:
1. conflict serializability
2. view serializability
We ignore operations other than read and write instructions, and we
assume that transactions may perform arbitrary computations on data in
local buffers in between reads and writes. Our simplified schedules
consist of only read and write instructions.
Conflict Serializability
Instructions l
i
and l
j
of transactions T
i
and T
j
respectively, conflict
if and only if there exists some item Q accessed by both l
i
and l
j
,
and at least one of these instructions wrote Q.
1. l
i
= read(Q), l
j
= read(Q). l
i
and l
j
dont conflict.
2. l
i
= read(Q), l
j
= write(Q). They conflict.
3. l
i
= write(Q), l
j
= read(Q). They conflict
4. l
i
= write(Q), l
j
= write(Q). They conflict


Intuitively, a conflict between l
i
and l
j
forces a (logical) temporal
order between them. If l
i
and l
j
are consecutive in a schedule
and they do not conflict, their results would remain the same
even if they had been interchanged in the schedule.
Conflict Serializability
If a schedule S can be transformed into a schedule S by a series of
swaps of non-conflicting instructions, we say that S and S are
conflict equivalent.
We say that a schedule S is conflict serializable if it is conflict
equivalent to a serial schedule
Conflict Serializability
Schedule 3 here can be transformed into Schedule 1, a serial schedule where T2
follows T1, by series of swaps of non-conflicting instructions. Therefore Schedule
3 is conflict serializable.
View Serializability
Let S and S be two schedules with the same set of transactions. S and S
are view equivalent if the following three conditions are met:

1. For each data item Q, if transaction T
i
reads the initial value of Q in schedule S,
then transaction T
i
must, in schedule S, also read the initial value of Q.

2. For each data item Q if transaction T
i
executes read(Q) in schedule S, and that
value was produced by transaction T
j
(if any), then transaction T
i
must in
schedule S also read the value of Q that was produced by transaction T
j
.

3. For each data item Q, the transaction (if any) that performs the final write(Q)
operation in schedule S must perform the final write(Q) operation in schedule S.
View Serializability
A schedule S is view serializable it is view equivalent to a serial
schedule.
Every conflict serializable schedule is also view serializable.
Schedule 9 (from text) a schedule which is view-serializable but not
conflict serializable. This is view equivalent to serial schedule
<T3,T4,T6>








Every view serializable schedule that is not conflict serializable has
blind writes (performing write op without reading data item).
Recoverability
Recoverable schedule if a transaction T
j
reads a data items
previously written by a transaction T
i
, the commit operation of T
i

appears before the commit operation of T
j
.
The following schedule (Schedule 11) is not recoverable if T
9

commits immediately after the read





If T
8
should abort, T
9
would have read (and possibly shown to the
user) an inconsistent database state. Hence database must
ensure that schedules are recoverable.
Need to address the effect of transaction failures on concurrently
running transactions.
Recoverability
Cascading rollback a single transaction failure leads to
a series of transaction rollbacks. Consider the following
schedule where none of the transactions has yet
committed (so the schedule is recoverable)










If T
10
fails, T
11
and T
12
must also be rolled back.
Can lead to the undoing of a significant amount of work
Recoverability
Cascadeless schedules cascading rollbacks cannot occur;
for each pair of transactions T
i
and T
j
such that T
j
reads a data
item previously written by T
i
, the commit operation of T
i
appears
before the read operation of T
j
.
Every cascadeless schedule is also recoverable
It is desirable to restrict the schedules to those that are
cascadeless
Implementation of Isolation
Schedules must be conflict or view serializable, and
recoverable, for the sake of database consistency, and
preferably cascadeless.
A policy in which only one transaction can execute at a time
generates serial schedules, but provides a poor degree of
concurrency..
Concurrency-control schemes tradeoff between the amount
of concurrency they allow and the amount of overhead that
they incur.
Some schemes allow only conflict-serializable schedules to
be generated, while others allow view-serializable
schedules that are not conflict-serializable.
Testing for Serializability
Consider some schedule of a set of transactions T
1
, T
2
, ..., T
n

Precedence graph a direct graph where the vertices are the
transactions (names).
We draw an arc from T
i
to T
j
if the two transaction conflict, and T
i

accessed the data item on which the conflict arose earlier.
We may label the arc by the item that was accessed.
Example 1
x
y
Example- Schedule A
T
3

T
4

T
1
T
2

T
1
T
2
T
3
T
4
T
5

read(X)
read(Y)
read(Z)
read(V)
read(W)
read(W)
read(Y)
write(Y)
write(Z)
read(U)
read(Y)
write(Y)
read(Z)
write(Z)
read(U)
write(U)

Precedence Graph
Test for Conflict Serializability
A schedule is conflict serializable if and only if its precedence graph is
acyclic.

Cycle-detection algorithms exist which take order n
2
time, where n is the
number of vertices in the graph. (Better algorithms take order n + e where
e is the number of edges.)

If precedence graph is acyclic, the serializability order can be obtained by a
topological sorting of the graph. This is a linear order consistent with the
partial order of the graph.
For example, a serializability order for Schedule A would be
T
5
T
1
T
3
T
2
T
4
.
Test for View Serializability
The precedence graph test for conflict serializability must be modified to
apply to a test for view serializability.

The problem of checking if a schedule is view serializable falls in the
class of NP-complete problems. Thus existence of an efficient
algorithm is unlikely.


However practical algorithms that just check some sufficient conditions for
view serializability can still be used.
Concurrency Control vs. Serializability Tests
Testing a schedule for serializability after it has executed is a
little too late!
Goal to develop concurrency control protocols that will assure
serializability. They will generally not examine the precedence
graph as it is being created; instead a protocol will impose a
discipline that avoids nonseralizable schedules.
Will study such protocols in Chapter 16.
Tests for serializability help understand why a concurrency
control protocol is correct.
Transaction Definition in SQL
Data manipulation language must include a construct for
specifying the set of actions that comprise a transaction.
In SQL, a transaction begins implicitly.
A transaction in SQL ends by:
Commit work commits current transaction and begins a new
one.
Rollback work causes current transaction to abort.
Levels of Consistency in SQL-92
Serializable default
Repeatable read only committed records to be read,
repeated reads of same record must return same value.
However, a transaction may not be serializable it may find
some records inserted by a transaction but not find others.
Read committed only committed records can be read, but
successive reads of record may return different (but
committed) values.
Read uncommitted even uncommitted records may be
read.
Lower degrees of consistency useful for gathering approximate
information about the database, e.g., statistics for query optimizer.
Chapter 16: Concurrency Control
Lock-Based Protocols
Graph-Based Protocols
Timestamp-Based Protocols
Validation-Based Protocols
Multiple Granularity
Multiversion Schemes
Deadlock Handling
Insert and Delete Operations
Concurrency in Index Structures
In practice, a DBMS does not test serializability of a schedule, rather it uses
another mechanism it uses protocols that are known to produce serializable
schedules.
Lock-Based Protocols
A lock is a mechanism to control concurrent access to a data item
Data items can be locked in two modes :
1. exclusive (X) mode. Data item can be both read as well as
written. X-lock is requested using lock-X instruction.
2. shared (S) mode. Data item can only be read. S-lock is
requested using lock-S instruction.
Lock requests are made to concurrency-control manager.
Transaction can proceed only after request is granted.
Lock-Based Protocols
Lock-compatibility matrix




A transaction may be granted a lock on an item if the requested
lock is compatible with locks already held on the item by other
transactions
Any number of transactions can hold shared locks on an item,
but if any transaction holds an exclusive on the item no other
transaction may hold any lock on the item.
If a lock cannot be granted, the requesting transaction is made to
wait till all incompatible locks held by other transactions have
been released. The lock is then granted.
Lock-Based Protocols
Example of a transaction performing locking:
T
2
: lock-S(A);
read (A);
unlock(A);
lock-S(B);
read (B);
unlock(B);
display(A+B)
Locking as above is not sufficient to guarantee serializability if A and B
get updated in-between the read of A and B, the displayed sum would be
wrong.
A locking protocol is a set of rules followed by all transactions while
requesting and releasing locks. Locking protocols restrict the set of
possible schedules.
Pitfalls of Lock-Based Protocols
Consider the partial schedule









Neither T
3
nor T
4
can make progress executing lock-S(B) causes T
4

to wait for T
3
to release its lock on B, while executing lock-X(A) causes
T
3
to wait for T
4
to release its lock on A.
Such a situation is called a deadlock.
To handle a deadlock one of T
3
or T
4
must be rolled back
and its locks released.
Pitfalls of Lock-Based Protocols
The potential for deadlock exists in most locking protocols.
Deadlocks are a necessary evil.
Starvation is also possible if concurrency control manager is
badly designed. For example:
A transaction may be waiting for an X-lock on an item, while a
sequence of other transactions request and are granted an S-lock
on the same item.
The same transaction is repeatedly rolled back due to deadlocks.
Concurrency control manager can be designed to prevent
starvation.
The Two-Phase Locking Protocol(2PL)
This is a protocol which ensures conflict-serializable schedules.
Phase 1: Growing Phase
transaction may obtain locks
transaction may not release locks
Phase 2: Shrinking Phase
transaction may release locks
transaction may not obtain locks
The protocol assures serializability. It can be proved that the
transactions can be serialized in the order of their lock points
(i.e. the point where a transaction acquired its final lock).
The Two-Phase Locking Protocol
Two-phase locking does not ensure freedom from deadlocks
Cascading roll-back is possible under two-phase locking. To
avoid this, follow a modified protocol called strict two-phase
locking. Here a transaction must hold all its exclusive locks till it
commits/aborts.
Rigorous two-phase locking is even stricter: here all locks are
held till commit/abort. In this protocol transactions can be
serialized in the order in which they commit.
Lock Conversions
Two-phase locking with lock conversions:
First Phase:
can acquire a lock-S on item
can acquire a lock-X on item
can convert a lock-S to a lock-X (upgrade)
Second Phase:
can release a lock-S
can release a lock-X
can convert a lock-X to a lock-S (downgrade)
This protocol assures serializability. But still relies on the
programmer to insert the various locking instructions.
Automatic Acquisition of Locks
A transaction T
i
issues the standard read/write instruction,
without explicit locking calls.
The operation read(D) is processed as:
if T
i
has a lock on D
then
read(D)
else
begin
if necessary wait until no other
transaction has a lock-X on D
grant T
i
a lock-S on D;
read(D)
end
Automatic Acquisition of Locks
write(D) is processed as:
if T
i
has a lock-X on D
then
write(D)
else
begin
if necessary wait until no other trans. has any lock on D,
if T
i
has a lock-S on D
then
upgrade lock on D to lock-X
else
grant T
i
a lock-X on D
write(D)
end;
All locks are released after commit or abort
Implementation of Locking
A Lock manager can be implemented as a separate process to
which transactions send lock and unlock requests
The lock manager replies to a lock request by sending a lock
grant messages (or a message asking the transaction to roll
back, in case of a deadlock)
The requesting transaction waits until its request is answered
The lock manager maintains a data structure called a lock table
to record granted locks and pending requests
The lock table is usually implemented as an in-memory hash
table indexed on the name of the data item being locked
Lock Table
Black rectangles indicate granted
locks, white ones indicate waiting
requests
Lock table also records the type of
lock granted or requested
New request is added to the end of
the queue of requests for the data
item, and granted if it is compatible
with all earlier locks
Unlock requests result in the
request being deleted, and later
requests are checked to see if they
can now be granted
If transaction aborts, all waiting or
granted requests of the transaction
are deleted
lock manager may keep a list of
locks held by each transaction, to
implement this efficiently
Graph-Based Protocols
Graph-based protocols are an alternative to two-phase locking
Impose a partial ordering on the set D = {d
1
, d
2
,..., d
h
} of all
data items.
If d
i
d
j
then any transaction accessing both d
i
and d
j
must access
d
i
before accessing d
j
.
Implies that the set D may now be viewed as a directed acyclic
graph, called a database graph.
The tree-protocol is a simple kind of graph protocol.
Tree Protocol
Only exclusive locks are allowed.
The first lock by T
i
may be on any data item. Subsequently, a
data Q can be locked by T
i
only if the parent of Q is currently
locked by T
i
.
Data items may be unlocked at any time.
Graph-Based Protocols
The tree protocol ensures conflict serializability as well as
freedom from deadlock.
Unlocking may occur earlier in the tree-locking protocol than in
the two-phase locking protocol.
shorter waiting times, and increase in concurrency
protocol is deadlock-free, no rollbacks are required
the abort of a transaction can still lead to cascading rollbacks.
(this correction has to be made in the book also.)
However, in the tree-locking protocol, a transaction may have to
lock data items that it does not access.
increased locking overhead, and additional waiting time
potential decrease in concurrency
Schedules not possible under two-phase locking are possible
under tree protocol, and vice versa.
Timestamp-Based Protocols
Each transaction is issued a timestamp when it enters the system. If
an old transaction T
i
has time-stamp TS(T
i
), a new transaction T
j
is
assigned time-stamp TS(T
j
) such that TS(T
i
) <TS(T
j
).
The protocol manages concurrent execution such that the time-
stamps determine the serializability order.
In order to assure such behavior, the protocol maintains for each data
Q two timestamp values:
W-timestamp(Q) is the largest time-stamp of any transaction that
executed write(Q) successfully.
R-timestamp(Q) is the largest time-stamp of any transaction that
executed read(Q) successfully.
Timestamp-Based Protocols
The timestamp ordering protocol ensures that any conflicting
read and write operations are executed in timestamp order.
Suppose a transaction T
i
issues a read(Q)
1. If TS(T
i
) W-timestamp(Q), then T
i
needs to read a value of Q
that was already overwritten. Hence, the read operation is
rejected, and T
i
is rolled back.
2. If TS(T
i
) W-timestamp(Q), then the read operation is
executed, and R-timestamp(Q) is set to the maximum of R-
timestamp(Q) and TS(T
i
).
Timestamp-Based Protocols
Suppose that transaction T
i
issues write(Q).
If TS(T
i
) < R-timestamp(Q), then the value of Q that T
i
is
producing was needed previously, and the system assumed that
that value would never be produced. Hence, the write operation
is rejected, and T
i
is rolled back.
If TS(T
i
) < W-timestamp(Q), then T
i
is attempting to write an
obsolete value of Q. Hence, this write operation is rejected, and
T
i
is rolled back.
Otherwise, the write operation is executed, and W-
timestamp(Q) is set to TS(T
i
).
Correctness of Timestamp-Ordering Protocol
The timestamp-ordering protocol guarantees serializability since
all the arcs in the precedence graph are of the form:





Thus, there will be no cycles in the precedence graph
Timestamp protocol ensures freedom from deadlock as no
transaction ever waits.
But the schedule may not be cascade-free, and may not even be
recoverable.
transaction
with smaller
timestamp
transaction
with larger
timestamp
Recoverability and Cascade Freedom
Problem with timestamp-ordering protocol:
Suppose T
i
aborts, but T
j
has read a data item written by T
i

Then T
j
must abort; if T
j
had been allowed to commit earlier, the
schedule is not recoverable.
Further, any transaction that has read a data item written by T
j
must
abort
This can lead to cascading rollback --- that is, a chain of rollbacks
Solution:
A transaction is structured such that its writes are all performed at
the end of its processing
All writes of a transaction form an atomic action; no transaction may
execute while a transaction is being written
A transaction that aborts is restarted with a new timestamp
Thomas Write Rule
Modified version of the timestamp-ordering protocol in which
obsolete write operations may be ignored under certain
circumstances.
When T
i
attempts to write data item Q, if TS(T
i
) < W-
timestamp(Q), then T
i
is attempting to write an obsolete value of
{Q}. Hence, rather than rolling back T
i
as the timestamp ordering
protocol would have done, this {write} operation can be ignored.
Otherwise this protocol is the same as the timestamp ordering
protocol.
Thomas' Write Rule allows greater potential concurrency. Unlike
previous protocols, it allows some view-serializable schedules
that are not conflict-serializable.
Validation-Based Protocol
Execution of transaction T
i
is done in three phases.
1. Read and execution phase: Transaction T
i
writes only to
temporary local variables
2. Validation phase: Transaction T
i
performs a ``validation test''
to determine if local variables can be written without violating
serializability.
3. Write phase: If T
i
is validated, the updates are applied to the
database; otherwise, T
i
is rolled back.
The three phases of concurrently executing transactions can be
interleaved, but each transaction must go through the three
phases in that order.
Also called as optimistic concurrency control since transaction
executes fully in the hope that all will go well during validation
Validation-Based Protocol
Each transaction T
i
has 3 timestamps
Start(T
i
) : the time when T
i
started its execution
Validation(T
i
): the time when T
i
entered its validation phase
Finish(T
i
) : the time when T
i
finished its write phase
Serializability order is determined by timestamp given at
validation time, to increase concurrency. Thus TS(T
i
) is given
the value of Validation(T
i
).
This protocol is useful and gives greater degree of concurrency if
probability of conflicts is low. That is because the serializability
order is not pre-decided and relatively less transactions will have
to be rolled back.
Validation Test for Transaction T
j
If for all T
i
with TS (T
i
) < TS (T
j
) either one of the following
condition holds:
finish(T
i
) < start(T
j
)
start(T
j
) < finish(T
i
) < validation(T
j
) and the set of data items
written by T
i
does not intersect with the set of data items read by T
j
.
then validation succeeds and T
j
can be committed. Otherwise,
validation fails and T
j
is aborted.
Justification: Either first condition is satisfied, and there is no
overlapped execution, or second condition is satisfied and
1. the writes of T
j
do not affect reads of T
i
since they occur after T
i

has finished its reads.
2. the writes of T
i
do not affect reads of T
j
since T
j
does not read
any item written by T
i
.
Schedule Produced by Validation
Example of schedule produced using validation
T
14
T
15

read(B)
read(B)
B:- B-50
read(A)
A:- A+50
read(A)
(validate)
display (A+B)
(validate)
write (B)
write (A)
Multiple Granularity
Allow data items to be of various sizes and define a hierarchy of
data granularities, where the small granularities are nested within
larger ones
Can be represented graphically as a tree (but don't confuse with
tree-locking protocol)
When a transaction locks a node in the tree explicitly, it implicitly
locks all the node's descendents in the same mode.
Granularity of locking (level in tree where locking is done):
fine granularity (lower in tree): high concurrency, high locking
overhead
coarse granularity (higher in tree): low locking overhead, low
concurrency
Example of Granularity Hierarchy









The highest level in the example hierarchy is the entire database.
The levels below are of type area, file and record in that order.
Intention Lock Modes
In addition to S and X lock modes, there are three additional lock
modes with multiple granularity:
intention-shared (IS): indicates explicit locking at a lower level of
the tree but only with shared locks.
intention-exclusive (IX): indicates explicit locking at a lower level
with exclusive or shared locks
shared and intention-exclusive (SIX): the subtree rooted by that
node is locked explicitly in shared mode and explicit locking is being
done at a lower level with exclusive-mode locks.
intention locks allow a higher level node to be locked in S or X
mode without having to check all descendent nodes.
Compatibility Matrix with
Intention Lock Modes
The compatibility matrix for all lock modes is:
IS
IX S S IX
X
IS
IX
S
S IX
X
















Multiple Granularity Locking Scheme
Transaction T
i
can lock a node Q, using the following rules:
1. The lock compatibility matrix must be observed.
2. The root of the tree must be locked first, and may be locked in
any mode.
3. A node Q can be locked by T
i
in S or IS mode only if the parent
of Q is currently locked by T
i
in either IX or IS mode.
4. A node Q can be locked by T
i
in X, SIX, or IX mode only if the
parent of Q is currently locked by T
i
in either IX or SIX mode.
5. T
i
can lock a node only if it has not previously unlocked any node
(that is, T
i
is two-phase).
6. T
i
can unlock a node Q only if none of the children of Q are
currently locked by T
i
.
Observe that locks are acquired in root-to-leaf order, whereas they are
released in leaf-to-root order.
Multiversion Schemes
Multiversion schemes keep old versions of data item to increase
concurrency.
Multiversion Timestamp Ordering
Multiversion Two-Phase Locking
Each successful write results in the creation of a new version of
the data item written.
Use timestamps to label versions.
When a read(Q) operation is issued, select an appropriate
version of Q based on the timestamp of the transaction, and
return the value of the selected version.
reads never have to wait as an appropriate version is returned
immediately.
Multiversion Timestamp Ordering
Each data item Q has a sequence of versions <Q
1
, Q
2
,...., Q
m
>.
Each version Q
k
contains three data fields:
Content -- the value of version Q
k
.
W-timestamp(Q
k
) -- timestamp of the transaction that created
(wrote) version Q
k

R-timestamp(Q
k
) -- largest timestamp of a transaction that
successfully read version Q
k

when a transaction T
i
creates a new version Q
k
of Q, Q
k
's W-
timestamp and R-timestamp are initialized to TS(T
i
).
R-timestamp of Q
k
is updated whenever a transaction T
j
reads
Q
k
, and TS(T
j
) > R-timestamp(Q
k
).
Multiversion Two-Phase Locking
Differentiates between read-only transactions and update
transactions
Update transactions acquire read and write locks, and hold all
locks up to the end of the transaction. That is, update
transactions follow rigorous two-phase locking.
Each successful write results in the creation of a new version of the
data item written.
each version of a data item has a single timestamp whose value is
obtained from a counter ts-counter that is incremented during
commit processing.
Read-only transactions are assigned a timestamp by reading the
current value of ts-counter before they start execution; they
follow the multiversion timestamp-ordering protocol for
performing reads.
Multiversion Two-Phase Locking
When an update transaction wants to read a data item, it obtains
a shared lock on it, and reads the latest version.
When it wants to write an item, it obtains X lock on; it then
creates a new version of the item and sets this version's
timestamp to .
When update transaction T
i
completes, commit processing
occurs:
T
i
sets timestamp on the versions it has created to ts-counter + 1
T
i
increments ts-counter by 1
Read-only transactions that start after T
i
increments ts-counter
will see the values updated by T
i
.
Read-only transactions that start before T
i
increments the
ts-counter will see the value before the updates by T
i
.
Only serializable schedules are produced.
Deadlock Handling
System is deadlocked if there is a set of transactions such that
every transaction in the set is waiting for another transaction in
the set.
Deadlock prevention protocols ensure that the system will
never enter into a deadlock state. Some prevention strategies :
Require that each transaction locks all its data items before it begins
execution (predeclaration).
Impose partial ordering of all data items and require that a
transaction can lock data items only in the order specified by the
partial order (graph-based protocol).
More Deadlock Prevention Strategies
Following schemes use transaction timestamps for the sake of
deadlock prevention alone.
wait-die scheme non-preemptive
older transaction may wait for younger one to release data item.
Younger transactions never wait for older ones; they are rolled back
instead.
a transaction may die several times before acquiring needed data
item
wound-wait scheme preemptive
older transaction wounds (forces rollback) of younger transaction
instead of waiting for it. Younger transactions may wait for older
ones.
may be fewer rollbacks than wait-die scheme.
Deadlock prevention
Both in wait-die and in wound-wait schemes, a rolled back
transactions is restarted with its original timestamp. Older
transactions thus have precedence over newer ones, and
starvation is hence avoided.
Timeout-Based Schemes :
a transaction waits for a lock only for a specified amount of time.
After that, the wait times out and the transaction is rolled back.
thus deadlocks are not possible
simple to implement; but starvation is possible. Also difficult to
determine good value of the timeout interval.
Deadlock Detection
Deadlocks can be described as a wait-for graph, which consists
of a pair G = (V,E),
V is a set of vertices (all the transactions in the system)
E is a set of edges; each element is an ordered pair T
i
T
j
.
If T
i
T
j
is in E, then there is a directed edge from T
i
to T
j
,
implying that T
i
is waiting for T
j
to release a data item.
When T
i
requests a data item currently being held by T
j
, then the
edge T
i
T
j
is inserted in the wait-for graph. This edge is removed
only when T
j
is no longer holding a data item needed by T
i
.
The system is in a deadlock state if and only if the wait-for graph
has a cycle. Must invoke a deadlock-detection algorithm
periodically to look for cycles.
Deadlock Detection
Wait-for graph without a cycle
Wait-for graph with a cycle
Deadlock Recovery
When deadlock is detected :
Some transaction will have to rolled back (made a victim) to break
deadlock. Select that transaction as victim that will incur minimum
cost.
Rollback -- determine how far to roll back transaction
Total rollback: Abort the transaction and then restart it.
More effective to roll back transaction only as far as necessary to
break deadlock.
Starvation happens if same transaction is always chosen as victim.
Include the number of rollbacks in the cost factor to avoid starvation
Insert and Delete Operations
If two-phase locking is used :
A delete operation may be performed only if the transaction
deleting the tuple has an exclusive lock on the tuple to be deleted.
A transaction that inserts a new tuple into the database is given an
X-mode lock on the tuple
Insertions and deletions can lead to the phantom phenomenon.
A transaction that scans a relation (e.g., find all accounts in
Perryridge) and a transaction that inserts a tuple in the relation (e.g.,
insert a new account at Perryridge) may conflict in spite of not
accessing any tuple in common.
If only tuple locks are used, non-serializable schedules can result:
the scan transaction may not see the new account, yet may be
serialized before the insert transaction.

Que to do is : What is phantom phenomenon? How can we prevent it?
Insert and Delete Operations
The transaction scanning the relation is reading information that
indicates what tuples the relation contains, while a transaction
inserting a tuple updates the same information.
The information should be locked.
One solution:
Associate a data item with the relation, to represent the information
about what tuples the relation contains.
Transactions scanning the relation acquire a shared lock in the data
item,
Transactions inserting or deleting a tuple acquire an exclusive lock on
the data item. (Note: locks on the data item do not conflict with locks on
individual tuples.)
Above protocol provides very low concurrency for
insertions/deletions.
Index locking protocols provide higher concurrency while
preventing the phantom phenomenon, by requiring locks
on certain index buckets.
Index Locking Protocol
Every relation must have at least one index. Access to a relation
must be made only through one of the indices on the relation.
A transaction T
i
that performs a lookup must lock all the index
buckets that it accesses, in S-mode.
A transaction T
i
may not insert a tuple t
i
into a relation r without
updating all indices to r.
T
i
must perform a lookup on every index to find all index buckets
that could have possibly contained a pointer to tuple t
i
, had it
existed already, and obtain locks in X-mode on all these index
buckets. T
i
must also obtain locks in X-mode on all index buckets
that it modifies.
The rules of the two-phase locking protocol must be observed.
Weak Levels of Consistency
Degree-two consistency: differs from two-phase locking in that
S-locks may be released at any time, and locks may be acquired
at any time
X-locks must be held till end of transaction
Serializability is not guaranteed, programmer must ensure that no
erroneous database state will occur
Cursor stability:
For reads, each tuple is locked, read, and lock is immediately
released
X-locks are held till end of transaction
Special case of degree-two consistency