Chapter 16 : Concurrency Control

Version: Oct 5, 2006

Database System Concepts 5th Ed.

Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan, 2005 See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use

Chapter 16: Concurrency Control

Lock-Based Protocols
Timestamp-Based Protocols Validation-Based Protocols Multiple Granularity

Multiversion Schemes
Insert and Delete Operations Concurrency in Index Structures

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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.

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Lock-Based Protocols (Cont.)

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.

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Lock-Based Protocols (Cont.)

Example of a transaction performing locking:

T2: 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.

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Pitfalls of Lock-Based Protocols

Consider the partial schedule

Neither T3 nor T4 can make progress executing lock-S(B) causes T4

to wait for T3 to release its lock on B, while executing lock-X(A) causes T3 to wait for T4 to release its lock on A. Such a situation is called a deadlock.

To handle a deadlock one of T3 or T4 must be rolled back and its locks released.

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Pitfalls of Lock-Based Protocols (Cont.)

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.

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The Two-Phase Locking Protocol

This is a protocol which ensures conflict-serializable schedules. Phase 1: Growing Phase

transaction may obtain locks transaction may not release locks transaction may release locks transaction may not obtain locks

Phase 2: Shrinking Phase

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).

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The Two-Phase Locking Protocol (Cont.)

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.

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The Two-Phase Locking Protocol (Cont.)

There can be conflict serializable schedules that cannot be obtained if

two-phase locking is used.

However, in the absence of extra information (e.g., ordering of access

to data), two-phase locking is needed for conflict serializability in the following sense: Given a transaction Ti that does not follow two-phase locking, we can find a transaction Tj that uses two-phase locking, and a schedule for Ti and Tj that is not conflict serializable.

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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)

can release a lock-S can release a lock-X

Second Phase:

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.

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Automatic Acquisition of Locks

A transaction Ti issues the standard read/write instruction, without

explicit locking calls.

The operation read(D) is processed as:

if Ti has a lock on D

then
read(D) else begin if necessary wait until no other transaction has a lock-X on D grant Ti a lock-S on D; read(D) end

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Automatic Acquisition of Locks (Cont.)

write(D) is processed as:

if Ti has a lock-X on D then write(D) else begin if necessary wait until no other trans. has any lock on D, if Ti has a lock-S on D then upgrade lock on D to lock-X else grant Ti a lock-X on D write(D) end;
All locks are released after commit or abort

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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

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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

Granted Waiting

lock manager may keep a list of locks held by each transaction, to implement this efficiently

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Graph-Based Protocols
Graph-based protocols are an alternative to two-phase locking Impose a partial ordering on the set D = {d1, d2 ,..., dh} of all data

items.

If di dj then any transaction accessing both di and dj must access di before accessing dj.

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.

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Tree Protocol

1. Only exclusive locks are allowed.

2. The first lock by Ti may be on any data item. Subsequently, a data Q

can be locked by Ti only if the parent of Q is currently locked by Ti.

3. Data items may be unlocked at any time. 4. A data item that has been locked and unlocked by Ti cannot

subsequently be relocked by Ti
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Graph-Based Protocols (Cont.)

The tree protocol ensures conflict serializability as well as freedom from

deadlock. Unlocking may occur earlier in the tree-locking protocol than in the twophase locking protocol. shorter waiting times, and increase in concurrency

protocol is deadlock-free, no rollbacks are required Drawbacks Protocol does not guarantee recoverability or cascade freedom Need to introduce commit dependencies to ensure recoverability Transactions may have to lock data items that they do 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.

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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

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Example of Granularity Hierarchy

The levels, starting from the coarsest (top) level are database

area file

record
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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.

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Compatibility Matrix with Intention Lock Modes

The compatibility matrix for all lock modes is:

IS IS IX S S IX X

IX

S IX

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Multiple Granularity Locking Scheme

Transaction Ti can lock a node Q, using the following rules:
1. 2.

The lock compatibility matrix must be observed. The root of the tree must be locked first, and may be locked in any mode.

A node Q can be locked by Ti in S or IS mode only if the parent of Q is currently locked by Ti in either IX or IS mode. 4. A node Q can be locked by Ti in X, SIX, or IX mode only if the parent of Q is currently locked by Ti in either IX or SIX mode. 5. Ti can lock a node only if it has not previously unlocked any node (that is, Ti is two-phase).
3.

Ti can unlock a node Q only if none of the children of Q are currently locked by Ti. Observe that locks are acquired in root-to-leaf order, whereas they are released in leaf-to-root order.
6.

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Deadlock Handling
Consider the following two transactions:

T1:

write (X) write(Y)

T2:

write(Y) write(X)

Schedule with deadlock

T1 lock-X on X write (X)

T2

lock-X on Y write (X) wait for lock-X on X

wait for lock-X on Y

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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).

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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.

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Deadlock prevention (Cont.)

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.

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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 Ti Tj.

If Ti Tj is in E, then there is a directed edge from Ti to Tj, implying

that Ti is waiting for Tj to release a data item.

When Ti requests a data item currently being held by Tj, then the edge

Ti Tj is inserted in the wait-for graph. This edge is removed only when Tj is no longer holding a data item needed by Ti.
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.

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Deadlock Detection (Cont.)

Wait-for graph without a cycle

Wait-for graph with a cycle

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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

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Other Approaches to Concurrency Control

Database System Concepts 5th Ed.

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Timestamp-Based Protocols
Each transaction is issued a timestamp when it enters the system. If an old

transaction Ti has time-stamp TS(Ti), a new transaction Tj is assigned timestamp TS(Tj) such that TS(Ti) <TS(Tj).
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.

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Timestamp-Based Protocols (Cont.)

The timestamp ordering protocol ensures that any conflicting read

and write operations are executed in timestamp order.

Suppose a transaction Ti issues a read(Q)
1.

If TS(Ti) W-timestamp(Q), then Ti needs to read a value of Q that was already overwritten.

Hence, the read operation is rejected, and Ti is rolled back.

2.

If TS(Ti) W-timestamp(Q), then the read operation is executed, and R-timestamp(Q) is set to max(R-timestamp(Q), TS(Ti)).

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Timestamp-Based Protocols (Cont.)

Suppose that transaction Ti issues write(Q).
1.

If TS(Ti) < R-timestamp(Q), then the value of Q that Ti is producing was needed previously, and the system assumed that that value would never be produced.

Hence, the write operation is rejected, and Ti is rolled back.

2.

If TS(Ti) < W-timestamp(Q), then Ti is attempting to write an obsolete value of Q.

Hence, this write operation is rejected, and Ti is rolled back.

3.

Otherwise, the write operation is executed, and W-timestamp(Q) is set to TS(Ti).

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Example Use of the Protocol

A partial schedule for several data items for transactions with timestamps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

T1

T2 read(Y)

T3

T4

T5 read(X)

read(Y)

write(Y) write(Z) read(X) abort write(Z) abort read(Z)

read(X)

write(Y) write(Z)

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Correctness of Timestamp-Ordering Protocol

The timestamp-ordering protocol guarantees serializability since all the

arcs in the precedence graph are of the form: transaction with smaller timestamp transaction with larger timestamp

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.

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Recoverability and Cascade Freedom

Problem with timestamp-ordering protocol:

Suppose Ti aborts, but Tj has read a data item written by Ti Then Tj must abort; if Tj had been allowed to commit earlier, the schedule is not recoverable. Further, any transaction that has read a data item written by Tj must abort This can lead to cascading rollback --- that is, a chain of rollbacks Solution 1: 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 Solution 2: Limited form of locking: wait for data to be committed before reading it Solution 3: Use commit dependencies to ensure recoverability

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Thomas Write Rule

Modified version of the timestamp-ordering protocol in which obsolete

write operations may be ignored under certain circumstances.

When Ti attempts to write data item Q, if TS(Ti) < W-timestamp(Q),

then Ti is attempting to write an obsolete value of {Q}.

Rather than rolling back Ti 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.

Allows some view-serializable schedules that are not conflictserializable.

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Validation-Based Protocol
Execution of transaction Ti is done in three phases.

1. Read and execution phase: Transaction Ti writes only to temporary local variables 2. Validation phase: Transaction Ti performs a ``validation test'' to determine if local variables can be written without violating serializability. 3. Write phase: If Ti is validated, the updates are applied to the database; otherwise, Ti 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.

Assume for simplicity that the validation and write phase occur together, atomically and serially

I.e., only one transaction executes validation/write at a time.

Also called as optimistic concurrency control since transaction

executes fully in the hope that all will go well during validation

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Validation-Based Protocol (Cont.)

Each transaction Ti has 3 timestamps

Start(Ti) : the time when Ti started its execution Validation(Ti): the time when Ti entered its validation phase Finish(Ti) : the time when Ti finished its write phase

Serializability order is determined by timestamp given at validation

time, to increase concurrency.

Thus TS(Ti) is given the value of Validation(Ti).

This protocol is useful and gives greater degree of concurrency if

probability of conflicts is low.

because the serializability order is not pre-decided, and

relatively few transactions will have to be rolled back.

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Validation Test for Transaction Tj

If for all Ti with TS (Ti) < TS (Tj) either one of the following condition

holds:

finish(Ti) < start(Tj) start(Tj) < finish(Ti) < validation(Tj) and the set of data items written by Ti does not intersect with the set of data items read by Tj.

then validation succeeds and Tj can be committed. Otherwise, validation fails and Tj is aborted.
Justification: Either the first condition is satisfied, and there is no

overlapped execution, or the second condition is satisfied and

the writes of Tj do not affect reads of Ti since they occur after Ti has finished its reads. the writes of Ti do not affect reads of Tj since Tj does not read any item written by Ti.

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Schedule Produced by Validation

Example of schedule produced using validation

T14 read(B)

T15 read(B) B:= B-50 read(A) A:= A+50

read(A) (validate) display (A+B)

(validate) write (B) write (A)

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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.

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Multiversion Timestamp Ordering

Each data item Q has a sequence of versions <Q1, Q2,...., Qm>. Each

version Qk contains three data fields:

Content -- the value of version Qk. W-timestamp(Qk) -- timestamp of the transaction that created (wrote) version Qk

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

when a transaction Ti creates a new version Qk of Q, Qk's W-

timestamp and R-timestamp are initialized to TS(Ti).

R-timestamp of Qk is updated whenever a transaction Tj reads Qk, and

TS(Tj) > R-timestamp(Qk).

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Multiversion Timestamp Ordering (Cont)

Suppose that transaction Ti issues a read(Q) or write(Q) operation. Let

Qk denote the version of Q whose write timestamp is the largest write timestamp less than or equal to TS(Ti).
1.

If transaction Ti issues a read(Q), then the value returned is the content of version Qk.

2.

If transaction Ti issues a write(Q)

1. 2. 3.

if TS(Ti) < R-timestamp(Qk), then transaction Ti is rolled back. if TS(Ti) = W-timestamp(Qk), the contents of Qk are overwritten else a new version of Q is created.

Observe that

Reads always succeed A write by Ti is rejected if some other transaction Tj that (in the serialization order defined by the timestamp values) should read Ti's write, has already read a version created by a transaction older than Ti.

Protocol guarantees serializability

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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.

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Multiversion Two-Phase Locking (Cont.)

When an update transaction wants to read a data item:

it obtains a shared lock on it, and reads the latest version. it obtains X lock on; it then creates a new version of the item and sets this version's timestamp to . Ti sets timestamp on the versions it has created to ts-counter + 1 Ti increments ts-counter by 1

When it wants to write an item

When update transaction Ti completes, commit processing occurs:

Read-only transactions that start after Ti increments ts-counter will see

the values updated by Ti.

Read-only transactions that start before Ti increments the

ts-counter will see the value before the updates by Ti.

Only serializable schedules are produced.

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MVCC: Implementation Issues

Creation of multiple versions increases storage overhead

Extra tuples Extra space in each tuple for storing version information E.g. if Q has two versions Q5 and Q9, and the oldest active transaction has timestamp > 9, than Q5 will never be required again

Versions can, however, be garbage collected

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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 sum of balances of all accounts in Perryridge) and a transaction that inserts a tuple in the relation (e.g., insert a new account at Perryridge)

(conceptually) conflict in spite of not accessing any tuple in common. If only tuple locks are used, non-serializable schedules can result E.g. the scan transaction does not see the new account, but reads some other tuple written by the update transaction

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Insert and Delete Operations (Cont.)

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. 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,

One solution:

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.

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Index Locking Protocol

Index locking protocol:

Every relation must have at least one index. A transaction can access tuples only after finding them through one or more indices on the relation A transaction Ti that performs a lookup must lock all the index leaf nodes that it accesses, in S-mode

Even if the leaf node does not contain any tuple satisfying the index lookup (e.g. for a range query, no tuple in a leaf is in the range)

A transaction Ti that inserts, updates or deletes a tuple ti in a relation r

must update all indices to r

must obtain exclusive locks on all index leaf nodes affected by the insert/update/delete

The rules of the two-phase locking protocol must be observed

Guarantees that phantom phenomenon wont occur

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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] 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

Cursor stability:

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Weak Levels of Consistency in SQL

SQL allows non-serializable executions

Serializable: is the default Repeatable read: allows only committed records to be read, and repeating a read should return the same value (so read locks should be retained)

However, the phantom phenomenon need not be prevented T1 may see some records inserted by T2, but may not see others inserted by T2 Read committed: same as degree two consistency, but most systems implement it as cursor-stability Read uncommitted: allows even uncommitted data to be read In many database systems, read committed is the default consistency level has to be explicitly changed to serializable when required set isolation level serializable

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Concurrency in Index Structures

Indices are unlike other database items in that their only job is to help in

accessing data.
Index-structures are typically accessed very often, much more than

other database items.

Treating index-structures like other database items, e.g. by 2-phase locking of index nodes can lead to low concurrency.

There are several index concurrency protocols where locks on internal

nodes are released early, and not in a two-phase fashion.

It is acceptable to have nonserializable concurrent access to an index as long as the accuracy of the index is maintained.

In particular, the exact values read in an internal node of a B+-tree are irrelevant so long as we land up in the correct leaf node.

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Concurrency in Index Structures (Cont.)

Example of index concurrency protocol:

Use crabbing instead of two-phase locking on the nodes of the B+-tree, as follows. During search/insertion/deletion:

First lock the root node in shared mode. After locking all required children of a node in shared mode, release the lock on the node. During insertion/deletion, upgrade leaf node locks to exclusive mode. When splitting or coalescing requires changes to a parent, lock the parent in exclusive mode. Searches coming down the tree deadlock with updates going up the tree Can abort and restart search, without affecting transaction

Above protocol can cause excessive deadlocks

Better protocols are available; see Section 16.9 for one such protocol, the B-link tree protocol

Intuition: release lock on parent before acquiring lock on child

And deal with changes that may have happened between lock release and acquire
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Next-Key Locking
Index-locking protocol to prevent phantoms required locking entire leaf

Can result in poor concurrency if there are many inserts Lock all values that satisfy index lookup (match lookup value, or fall in lookup range) Also lock next key value in index Lock mode: S for lookups, X for insert/delete/update Regardless of which happens first, as long as both are concurrent

Alternative: for an index lookup

Ensures that range queries will conflict with inserts/deletes/updates

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Extra Slides

Database System Concepts 5th Ed.

Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan, 2005 See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use

Snapshot Isolation
Motivation: Decision support queries that read large amounts of data

have concurrency conflicts with OLTP transactions that update a few rows Poor performance results Solution 1: Give logical snapshot of database state to read only transactions, read-write transactions use normal locking

Multiversion 2-phase locking Works well, but how does system know a transaction is read only?
Solution 2: Give snapshot of database state to every transaction,

updates alone use 2-phase locking to guard against concurrent updates Problem: variety of anomalies such as lost update can result Partial solution: snapshot isolation level (next slide) Proposed by Berenson et al, SIGMOD 1995 Variants implemented in many database systems E.g. Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQL Server 2005

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Snapshot Isolation

A transaction T1 executing with Snapshot Isolation

T1 W(Y := 1) Commit Start

T2

T3

takes snapshot of committed data at start always reads/modifies data in its own snapshot

R(X) 0 R(Y) 1 W(X:=2) W(Z:=3)

updates of concurrent transactions are not visible to T1

writes of T1 complete when it commits First-committer-wins rule:

Commits only if no other concurrent transaction has already written data that T1 intends to write. Concurrent updates not visible Own updates are visible Not first-committer of X Serialization error, T2 is rolled back

Commit
R(Z) 0 R(Y) 1 W(X:=3)

Commit-Req
Abort

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Benefits of SI
Reading is never blocked,

and also doesnt block other txns activities Performance similar to Read Committed Avoids the usual anomalies No dirty read

No lost update No non-repeatable read Predicate based selects are repeatable (no phantoms) Problems with SI SI does not always give serializable executions Serializable: among two concurrent txns, one sees the effects of the other In SI: neither sees the effects of the other Result: Integrity constraints can be violated

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Snapshot Isolation
E.g. of problem with SI

T1: x:=y T2: y:= x Initially x = 3 and y = 17

Serial execution: x = ??, y = ?? if both transactions start at the same time, with snapshot isolation: x = ?? , y = ??

Called skew write Skew also occurs with inserts

E.g:

Find max order number among all orders Create a new order with order number = previous max + 1

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Snapshot Isolation Anomalies

SI breaks serializability when txns modify different items, each based

on a previous state of the item the other modified

Not very commin in practice

Eg. the TPC-C benchmark runs correctly under SI when txns conflict due to modifying different data, there is usually also a shared item they both modify too (like a total quantity) so SI will abort one of them Application developers should be careful about write skew

But does occur

SI can also cause a read-only transaction anomaly, where read-only

transaction may see an inconsistent state even if updaters are serializable

We omit details

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SI In Oracle and PostgreSQL

Warning: SI used when isolation level is set to serializable, by Oracle and

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQLs implementation of SI described in Section 26.4.1.3 Oracle implements first updater wins rule (variant of first committer wins)

concurrent writer check is done at time of write, not at commit time

Allows transactions to be rolled back earlier

Neither supports true serializable execution

Can sidestep for specific queries by using select .. for update in Oracle

and PostgreSQL

Locks the data which is read, preventing concurrent updates E.g.

1. 2. 3.

select max(orderno) from orders for update

read value into local variable maxorder

insert into orders (maxorder+1, )
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End of Chapter
Thanks to Alan Fekete and Sudhir Jorwekar for Snapshot Isolation examples

Database System Concepts 5th Ed.

Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan, 2005 See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use

Snapshot Read
Concurrent updates invisible to snapshot read

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Snapshot Write: First Committer Wins

Variant: First-updater-wins

Check for concurrent updates when write occurs

(Oracle uses this plus some extra features) Differs only in when abort occurs, otherwise equivalent
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SI Non-Serializability even for Read-Only Transactions

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Partial Schedule Under Two-Phase Locking

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Incomplete Schedule With a Lock Conversion

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Tree-Structured Database Graph

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Serializable Schedule Under the Tree Protocol

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Schedule 3

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Schedule 4

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Schedule 5, A Schedule Produced by Using Validation

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Compatibility Matrix

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Nonserializable Schedule with Degree-Two Consistency

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B+-Tree For account File with n = 3.

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Insertion of Clearview Into the B+-Tree of Figure 16.21

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Lock-Compatibility Matrix

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