Module 5 - Transaction Processing

Introduction to Transaction Processing – Transaction

concepts: ACID Properties of Transactions, Transaction
States - Serial and Serializable Schedules - Schedules
based on recoverability – Schedules based on
Serializability - Conflict Serializabilty – Recovery
Concepts: Log Based Recovery Protocols, Recovery
based on deferred update, Recovery techniques based on
immediate update – Shadow Paging Algorithm

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 Introduction to Transaction
Processing
 Single-User System:
 At most one user at a time can use the system.
 Multiuser System:
 Many users can access the system concurrently.
 Concurrency
 Interleaved processing:
 Concurrent execution of
processes is interleaved in
a single CPU
 Parallel processing:
 Processes are concurrently executed in multiple
CPUs.

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Introduction to Transaction Processing
 A Transaction:
 Logical unit of database processing that includes one or more
access operations (read -retrieval, write - insert or update,
delete).
 A transaction (set of operations) may be stand-alone
specified in a high level language like SQL submitted
interactively, or may be embedded within a program.
 Transaction boundaries:
 Begin and End transaction.
 An application program may contain several
transactions separated by the Begin and End transaction
boundaries.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Introduction to Transaction Processing
SIMPLE MODEL OF A DATABASE:
 A database is a collection of named data items

 Granularity of data – size of a field, a record , or a whole

disk block
 Basic operations are read and write

 read_item(X): Reads a database item named X into a

program variable. To simplify our notation, we assume

that the program variable is also named X.
 write_item(X): Writes the value of program variable X

into the database item named X.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Introduction to Transaction Processing
READ AND WRITE OPERATIONS:
 Basic unit of data transfer from the disk to the computer
main memory is one block. In general, a data item (what
is read or written) will be the field of some record in the
database, although it may be a larger unit such as a
record or even a whole block.
 read_item(X) command includes the following steps:
 Find the address of the disk block that contains item X.
 Copy that disk block into a buffer in main memory (if that disk
block is not already in some main memory buffer).
 Copy item X from the buffer to the program variable named X.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Introduction to Transaction Processing
READ AND WRITE OPERATIONS (contd.):
 write_item(X) command includes the following steps:
 Find the address of the disk block that contains item X.
 Copy that disk block into a buffer in main memory (if that disk
block is not already in some main memory buffer).
 Copy item X from the program variable named X into its correct
location in the buffer.
 Store the updated block from the buffer back to disk (either
immediately or at some later point in time).

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Two sample transactions
 Two sample transactions:
 (a) Transaction T1
 (b) Transaction T2

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Introduction to Transaction Processing (6)
Why Concurrency Control is needed:
 The Lost Update Problem
 This occurs when two transactions that access the same database
items have their operations interleaved in a way that makes the value
of some database item incorrect.
 The Temporary Update (or Dirty Read) Problem
 This occurs when one transaction updates a database item and then
the transaction fails for some reason.
 The updated item is accessed by another transaction before it is
changed back to its original value.
 The Incorrect Summary Problem
 If one transaction is calculating an aggregate summary function on a
number of records while other transactions are updating some of
these records, the aggregate function may calculate some values
before they are updated and others after they are updated.

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Concurrent execution is uncontrolled:
(a) The lost update problem.

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Concurrent execution is uncontrolled:
(b) The temporary update problem.

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Concurrent execution is uncontrolled:
(c) The incorrect summary problem.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Introduction to Transaction
Processing
Why recovery is needed:
1. A computer failure (system crash):
A hardware or software error occurs in the computer system
during transaction execution. If the hardware crashes, the
contents of the computer’s internal memory may be lost.
2. A transaction or system error:
Some operation in the transaction may cause it to fail, such as
integer overflow or division by zero. Transaction failure may
also occur because of erroneous parameter values or
because of a logical programming error. In addition, the user
may interrupt the transaction during its execution.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Introduction to Transaction
Processing
3. Local errors or exception conditions detected by the
transaction:
Certain conditions necessitate cancellation of the transaction.
For example, data for the transaction may not be found. A
condition, such as insufficient account balance in a banking
database, may cause a transaction, such as a fund
withdrawal from that account, to be canceled.
A programmed abort in the transaction causes it to fail.
4. Concurrency control enforcement:
The concurrency control method may decide to abort the
transaction, to be restarted later, because it violates
serializability or because several transactions are in a state
of deadlock

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Introduction to Transaction
Processing
5. Disk failure:
Some disk blocks may lose their data because of a
read or write malfunction or because of a disk
read/write head crash. This may happen during a
read or a write operation of the transaction.
6. Physical problems and catastrophes:
This refers to an endless list of problems that includes
power failure, fire, theft, sabotage, overwriting
disks or tapes by mistake, and mounting of a
wrong tape.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Transaction and System Concepts
 A transaction is an atomic unit of work that is
either completed in its entirety or not done at all.
 For recovery purposes, the system needs to

keep track of when the transaction starts,

terminates, and commits or aborts.
 Transaction states:
 Active state

 Partially committed state

 Committed state

 Failed state

 Terminated State

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Transaction and System Concepts
 Recovery manager keeps track of the following
operations:
 begin_transaction: This marks the beginning of transaction
execution.
 read or write: These specify read or write operations on the
database items that are executed as part of a transaction.
 end_transaction: This specifies that read and write
transaction operations have ended and marks the end limit of
transaction execution.
 At this point it may be necessary to check whether the

changes introduced by the transaction can be permanently

applied to the database or whether the transaction has to be
aborted because it violates concurrency control or for some
other reason.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Transaction and System Concepts
 Recovery manager keeps track of the following
operations (cont):
 commit_transaction: This signals a successful end
of the transaction so that any changes (updates)
executed by the transaction can be safely
committed to the database and will not be undone.
 rollback (or abort): This signals that the transaction
has ended unsuccessfully, so that any changes or
effects that the transaction may have applied to the
database must be undone.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Transaction and System Concepts
 Recovery techniques use the following operators:
 undo: Similar to rollback except that it applies to a
single operation rather than to a whole transaction.
 redo: This specifies that certain transaction
operations must be redone to ensure that all the
operations of a committed transaction have been
applied successfully to the database.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

State transition diagram illustrating
the states for transaction execution

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Transaction and System Concepts
 The System Log
 Log or Journal: The log keeps track of all
transaction operations that affect the values of
database items.
 This information may be needed to permit recovery
from transaction failures.
 The log is kept on disk, so it is not affected by any
type of failure except for disk or catastrophic failure.
 In addition, the log is periodically backed up to
archival storage (tape) to guard against such
catastrophic failures.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Transaction and System Concepts
 The System Log (cont):
 T in the following discussion refers to a unique transaction-id
that is generated automatically by the system and is used to
identify each transaction:
 Types of log record:
 [start_transaction,T]: Records that transaction T has started

execution.
 [write_item,T,X,old_value,new_value]: Records that

transaction T has changed the value of database item X from

old_value to new_value.
 [read_item,T,X]: Records that transaction T has read the

value of database item X.

 [commit,T]: Records that transaction T has completed

successfully, and affirms that its effect can be committed

(recorded permanently) to the database.
 [abort,T]: Records that transaction T has been aborted.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Transaction and System Concepts
Recovery using log records:
 If the system crashes, we can recover to a consistent
database state by examining the log and using one of
the Recovery techniques.
1. Because the log contains a record of every write operation
that changes the value of some database item, it is possible
to undo the effect of these write operations of a transaction T
by tracing backward through the log and resetting all items
changed by a write operation of T to their old_values.
2. We can also redo the effect of the write operations of a
transaction T by tracing forward through the log and setting
all items changed by a write operation of T (that did not get
done permanently) to their new_values.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Transaction and System Concepts
Commit Point of a Transaction:
 Definition a Commit Point:
 A transaction T reaches its commit point when all its
operations that access the database have been executed
successfully and the effect of all the transaction operations on
the database has been recorded in the log.
 Beyond the commit point, the transaction is said to be
committed, and its effect is assumed to be permanently
recorded in the database.
 The transaction then writes an entry [commit,T] into the log.
 Roll Back of transactions:
 Needed for transactions that have a [start_transaction,T] entry
into the log but no commit entry [commit,T] into the log.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Transaction and System Concepts
Commit Point of a Transaction (cont):
 Redoing transactions:
 Transactions that have written their commit entry in the log must

also have recorded all their write operations in the log; otherwise
they would not be committed, so their effect on the database can
be redone from the log entries. Notice that the log file must be
kept on disk.
 At the time of a system crash, only the log entries that have been

written back to disk are considered in the recovery process

because the contents of main memory may be lost.
 Force writing a log:
 Before a transaction reaches its commit point, any portion of the

log that has not been written to the disk yet must now be written to
the disk.
 This process is called force-writing the log file before committing a

transaction.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Desirable Properties of Transactions
ACID properties:
 Atomicity: A transaction is an atomic unit of processing; it is either
performed in its entirety or not performed at all.
 Consistency preservation: A correct execution of the transaction
must take the database from one consistent state to another.
 Isolation: A transaction should not make its updates visible to other
transactions until it is committed; this property, when enforced strictly,
solves the temporary update problem and makes cascading rollbacks
of transactions unnecessary.
 Durability or permanency: Once a transaction changes the
database and the changes are committed, these changes must never
be lost because of subsequent failure.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Recoverability
 Transaction schedule or history:
 When transactions are executing concurrently in an interleaved
fashion, the order of execution of operations from the various
transactions forms what is known as a transaction schedule (or
history).
 A schedule (or history) S of n transactions T1, T2, …,
Tn:
 It is an ordering of the operations of the transactions subject to
the constraint that, for each transaction Ti that participates in
S, the operations of T1 in S must appear in the same order in
which they occur in T1.
 Note, however, that operations from other transactions Tj can
be interleaved with the operations of Ti in S.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Recoverability

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Recoverability

Two operations in a schedule are said to conflict

if they satisfy all three of the following
conditions:
(1)they belong to different transactions;
(2)they access the same item X;
(3) at least one of the operations is a
write_item(X).

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Example
 Sa: r1(X); r2(X); w1(X); r1(Y); w2(X); w1(Y);
 Sb: r1(X); w1(X); r2(X); w2(X); r1(Y); a1;
 In schedule Sa, the operations r1(X) and w2(X)
conflict, as do the operations r2(X) and w1(X), and
the operations w1(X) and w2(X).
 However, the operations r1(X) and r2(X) do not
conflict.
 read-write conflict – Change the execution of order
of read and write operation
 write-write conflict - Change the execution of order
of write and write operation

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Recoverability
A schedule S of n transactions T1, T2, ..., Tn is said
to be a complete schedule if the following
conditions hold:
1. The operations in S are exactly those operations
in T1, T2, ..., Tn, including a commit or abort
operation as the last operation for each transaction
in the schedule.
2. For any pair of operations from the same
transaction Ti, their relative order of appearance in
S is the same as their order of appearance in Ti.
3. For any two conflicting operations, one of the two
must occur before the other in the schedule.
Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
 Characterizing Schedules based on
Recoverability
Schedules classified on recoverability:
 Recoverable schedule:
 One where no transaction needs to be rolled back.

 A schedule S is recoverable if no transaction T in

S commits until all transactions T’ that have written

an item that T reads have committed.
Not
recoverable

Recoverable

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Recoverability
 cascading rollback

 Cascadeless schedule (avoid cascading

rollback):
 One where every transaction reads only the

items that are written by committed

transactions.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Serializability
 Serial schedule:
 A schedule S is serial if, for every transaction T
participating in the schedule, all the operations of
T are executed consecutively in the schedule.
 Otherwise, the schedule is called nonserial
schedule.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Characterizing Schedules based on
Serializability
 Serializable schedule:
 A schedule S is serializable if it is equivalent to some

serial schedule of the same n transactions.

 Result equivalent:
 Two schedules are called result equivalent if they

produce the same final state of the database.

 Conflict equivalent:
 Two schedules are said to be conflict equivalent if the

order of any two conflicting operations is the same in

both schedules.
 Conflict serializable:
 A schedule S is said to be conflict serializable if it is

conflict equivalent to some serial schedule S’.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Characterizing Schedules based on
Serializability
 Being serializable is not the same as being serial
 Being serializable implies that the schedule is a
correct schedule.
 It will leave the database in a consistent state.
 The interleaving is appropriate and will result in a
state as if the transactions were serially executed,
yet will achieve efficiency due to concurrent
execution.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Serializability
 Serializability is hard to check.
 Interleaving of operations occurs in an operating
system through some scheduler
 Difficult to determine beforehand how the
operations in a schedule will be interleaved.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Serializability
Practical approach:
 Come up with methods (protocols) to ensure
serializability.
 It’s not possible to determine when a schedule
begins and when it ends.
 Hence, we reduce the problem of checking the
whole schedule to checking only a committed
project of the schedule (i.e. operations from only
the committed transactions.)
 Current approach used in most DBMSs:
 Use of locks with two phase locking

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Serializability
Testing for conflict serializability: Algorithm
 Looks at only read_Item (X) and write_Item (X)
operations
 Constructs a precedence graph (serialization
graph) - a graph with directed edges
 An edge is created from Ti to Tj if one of the
operations in Ti appears before a conflicting
operation in Tj
 The schedule is serializable if and only if the
precedence graph has no cycles.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Testing for conflict serializability:
Algorithm

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Constructing the Precedence Graphs
 Constructing the precedence graphs for schedules A and D to test
for conflict serializability.
 (a) Precedence graph for serial schedule A.

 (b) Precedence graph for serial schedule B.

 (c) Precedence graph for schedule C (not serializable).

 (d) Precedence graph for schedule D (serializable, equivalent to

schedule A).

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Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Another example of serializability
Testing

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Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Another Example of Serializability
Testing

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Another Example of Serializability
Testing

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Another Example of Serializability
Testing

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Characterizing Schedules based on
Serializability
 Example: bank credit / debit transactions on a given item
are separable and commutative.
 Consider the following schedule S for the two transactions:

 Sh : r1(X); w1(X); r2(Y); w2(Y); r1(Y); w1(Y); r2(X); w2(X);

 Using conflict serializability, it is not serializable.

 However, if it came from a (read,update, write) sequence as
follows:
 T1: r1(X); X := X − 10; w1(X); r1(Y); Y := Y + 10; w1(Y);

 T2: r2(Y); Y := Y − 20; w2(Y); r2(X); X := X + 20; w2(X);

 Sequence explanation: debit, debit, credit, credit.

 It is a correct schedule for the given semantics

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe