0% found this document useful (0 votes)
6 views5 pages

ACID VS BASE

The document compares ACID and BASE database transaction models, highlighting their key principles and differences. ACID focuses on atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability, ensuring reliable transactions, while BASE emphasizes availability, soft state, and eventual consistency, allowing for more flexible and scalable operations. The trade-offs between the two models include scalability, flexibility, performance, and data integrity, with ACID being more rigid and BASE offering greater adaptability.
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
0% found this document useful (0 votes)
6 views5 pages

ACID VS BASE

The document compares ACID and BASE database transaction models, highlighting their key principles and differences. ACID focuses on atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability, ensuring reliable transactions, while BASE emphasizes availability, soft state, and eventual consistency, allowing for more flexible and scalable operations. The trade-offs between the two models include scalability, flexibility, performance, and data integrity, with ACID being more rigid and BASE offering greater adaptability.
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 5

Key principles: ACID compared with BASE

ACID and BASE are acronyms for different database properties representing
how the database behaves during online transaction processing.

ACID

ACID stands for atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability.

Atomicity

 Atomicity ensures that all steps in a single database transaction are either
fully-completed or reverted to their original state.
 For example, in a reservation system, both tasks—booking seats and
updating customer details—must be completed in a single transaction.
You cannot have seats reserved for an incomplete customer profile. No
changes are made to the data if any part of the transaction fails.

Consistency

 Consistency guarantees that data meets predefined integrity constraints


and business rules. Even if multiple users perform similar operations
simultaneously, data remains consistent for all.
 For example, consistency ensures that when transferring funds from one
account to another, the total balance before and after the transaction
remains the same. If Account A has $200 and Account B has $400, the
total balance is $600. After A transfers $100 to B, A has $100 and B has
$500. The total balance is still $600.

Isolation

Isolation ensures that a new transaction, accessing a particular record, waits


until the previous transaction finishes before it commences operation. It ensures
that concurrent transactions do not interfere with each other, maintaining the
illusion that they are executing serially.
For another example, is a multi-user inventory management system? If one user
updates the quantity of a product, another user accessing the same product
information will see a consistent and isolated view of the data, unaffected by the
on-going update until it is committed.

Durability
Durability ensures that the database maintains all committed records, even if the
system experiences failure. It guarantees that when ACID transactions are
committed, all changes are permanent and unimpacted by subsequent system
failures.
For example, in a messaging application, when a user sends a message and
receives a confirmation of successful delivery, the durability property ensures
that the message is never lost. This remains true even if the application or server
encounters a failure.

BASE

BASE stands for basically available, soft state, and eventually consistent. The
acronym highlights that BASE is opposite of ACID, like their chemical
equivalents.

Basically available

 Basically available is the database’s concurrent accessibility by users at


all times. One user doesn’t need to wait for others to finish the transaction
before updating the record.
 For example, during a sudden surge in traffic on an ecommerce platform,
the system may prioritize serving product listings and accepting orders.
Even if there is a slight delay in updating inventory quantities, users
continue to check out items.

Soft state

 Soft state refers to the notion that data can have transient or temporary
states that may change over time, even without external triggers or inputs.
It describes the record’s transitional state when several applications
update it simultaneously. The record’s value is eventually finalized only
after all transactions complete.
 For example, if users edit a social media post, the change may not be
visible to other users immediately. However, later on, the post updates by
itself (reflecting the older change) even though no user triggered it.

Eventually consistent

 Eventually consistent means the record will achieve consistency when


all the concurrent updates have been completed. At this point,
applications querying the record will see the same value.
 For example, consider a distributed document editing system where
multiple users can simultaneously edit a document. If User A and User B
both edit the same section of the document simultaneously, their local
copies may temporarily differ until the changes are propagated and
synchronized. However, over time, the system ensures eventual
consistency by propagating and merging the changes made by different
users.
Key differences: ACID compared with BASE
There are trade-offs when choosing between ACID and BASE database
transaction models.

Scale

It’s harder to scale an ACID database transaction model because it focuses on


consistency. Only one transaction is allowed for any record at any moment,
which makes horizontal scaling more challenging.

Alternately, you can scale the BASE database model horizontally because it
doesn’t need to maintain strict consistency. Adding multiple nodes across the
database cluster allows the BASE model to improve its data availability, which
is the principle driving the database architecture.

Flexibility

ACID databases are less flexible when handling data. It must guarantee
immediate consistency, an ACID database may restrict access to some
applications if it experiences network or power outages. Similarly, applications
must wait for their turn to update data if other software modules are processing
a particular record.

Conversely, BASE databases are more flexible. Rather than imposing strict
restrictions, BASE allows applications to modify records when they are
available.

Performance

An ACID database might experience performance issues when handling large


data volumes or concurrent processing requests. As the data is processed in a
strict order, overhead in each transaction creates delays that affect all
applications accessing the record.
In contrast, applications accessing a BASE database can process the records at
any time. This reduces excessive wait time and improves the database
throughput.

Synchronization

An ACID database needs a synchronization mechanism to commit changes


from a transaction and reflect them in all associated records. At the same time, it
must lock the particular record from other parties until the transaction completes
or is discarded.

Meanwhile, a BASE database runs without locking the records, synchronizing


them eventually without time guarantees. When working with BASE databases,
developers know there might be inconsistencies when processing certain
records and take the necessary precautions in the application.

ACID vs BASE: A comparison table

Feature ACID BASE

Atomicity, Consistency, Basically Available, Soft state,


Full Form
Isolation, Durability Eventually consistent

Prioritizes availability and


Ensures reliable, consistent
Core principle performance over strict
transactions
consistency

Consistency
Strict consistency Eventual consistency
model

High – Guarantees data integrity Lower – Allows temporary


Data integrity
at all times inconsistencies

Best-effort transactions – may be


Transaction Transactions must complete
incomplete or inconsistent
handling fully or not at all
temporarily

Scalability Limited – Works best with High – Designed for distributed,


monolithic or traditional scalable systems
relational databases

Higher – Due to strict Lower – Allows for faster


Latency
consistency requirements response times

Social media platforms, real-time


Financial transactions, inventory
Use cases analytics, content delivery
management, order processing
networks

You might also like