Recovery System

Failure Classification
• Transaction failure :
• Logical errors: transaction cannot complete due to some internal error
condition
• System errors: the database system must terminate an active
transaction due to an error condition (e.g., deadlock)
• System crash: a power failure or other hardware or software failure
causes the system to crash.
• Fail-stop assumption: non-volatile storage contents are assumed to not
be corrupted by system crash
• Disk failure: disk failure destroys all or part of disk storage
• Destruction is assumed to be detectable: disk drives use checksums to
detect failures
Recovery Algorithms
• Recovery algorithms are techniques to ensure database
consistency and transaction atomicity and durability despite
failures
• Recovery algorithms have two parts
1. Actions taken during normal transaction processing to ensure
enough information exists to recover from failures
2. Actions taken after a failure to recover the database contents to
a state that ensures atomicity, consistency and durability
 Storage Structure
• Volatile storage:
• does not survive system crashes
• examples: main memory, cache memory
• Nonvolatile storage:
• survives system crashes
• examples: disk, tape, flash memory,

• Stable storage:
• a mythical form of storage that survives all failures
• approximated by maintaining multiple copies on distinct nonvolatile
media
 Stable-Storage Implementation
• Maintain multiple copies of each block on separate disks
• copies can be at remote sites to protect against disasters such as fire or
flooding.
• Failure during data transfer can still result in inconsistent copies: Block
transfer can result in
• Successful completion
• Partial failure: destination block has incorrect information
• Total failure: destination block was never updated
• Protecting storage media from failure during data transfer (one
solution):
• Execute output operation as follows (assuming two copies of each block):
1. Write the information onto the first physical block.
2. When the first write successfully completes, write the same information onto
the second physical block.
3. The output is completed only after the second write successfully completes.
 Stable-Storage Implementation

• Protecting storage media from failure during data transfer (cont.):

• Copies of a block may differ due to failure during output operation.
To recover from failure:
1. First find inconsistent blocks:
1. Expensive solution: Compare the two copies of every disk block.
2. Better solution:
 Record in-progress disk writes on non-volatile storage (Non-volatile RAM or
special area of disk).
 Use this information during recovery to find blocks that may be inconsistent,
and only compare copies of these.
2. If either copy of an inconsistent block is detected to have an error (bad
checksum), overwrite it by the other copy. If both have no error, but
are different, overwrite the second block by the first block.
Data Access
• Physical blocks are those blocks residing on the disk.
• Buffer blocks are the blocks residing temporarily in main memory.
• Block movements between disk and main memory are initiated
through the following two operations:
• input(B) transfers the physical block B to main memory.
• output(B) transfers the buffer block B to the disk, and replaces the
appropriate physical block there.
• Each transaction Ti has its private work-area in which local copies
of all data items accessed and updated by it are kept.
• Ti's local copy of a data item X is called xi.
• We assume, for simplicity, that each data item fits in, and is stored
inside, a single block.
 Data Access (Cont.)
• Transaction transfers data items between system buffer blocks and
its private work-area using the following operations :
• read(X) assigns the value of data item X to the local variable xi.
• write(X) assigns the value of local variable xi to data item {X} in the
buffer block.
• both these commands may necessitate the issue of an input(BX)
instruction before the assignment, if the block BX in which X resides is
not already in memory.
• Transactions
• Perform read(X) while accessing X for the first time;
• All subsequent accesses are to the local copy.
• After last access, transaction executes write(X).
Example of Databuffer
Access
Buffer Block A input(A)
X A
Buffer Block B Y B
output(B)
read(X)
write(Y)

x2
x1
y1

work area work area

of T1 of T2

memory disk
Recovery and Atomicity (Cont.)
• To ensure atomicity despite failures
• We study approach:
• log-based recovery,
• We assume that transactions run serially, that is, one after the
other.
Log-Based Recovery
• A log is kept on stable storage.
• The log is a sequence of log records, and maintains a record of update activities
on the database.
• When transaction Ti starts, it registers itself by writing a
<Ti start>log record
• Before Ti executes write(X), a log record <Ti, X, V1, V2> is written, where V1
is the value of X before the write, and V2 is the value to be written to X.
• Log record notes that Ti has performed a write on data item Xj Xj had value V1
before the write, and will have value V2 after the write.
• When Ti finishes it last statement, the log record <Ti commit> is committed.
• <Ti abort> . Transaction has aborted.
• We assume for now that log records are written directly to stable storage
(that is, they are not buffered)
• Two approaches using logs
• Deferred database modification
• Immediate database modification
Deferred Database
Modification
• The deferred database modification scheme records all
modifications to the log, but defers all the writes to after
partial commit.
• Assume that transactions execute serially
• Transaction starts by writing <Ti start> record to log.
• A write(X) operation results in a log record <Ti, X, V> being
written, where V is the new value for X
• Note: old value is not needed for this scheme
• The write is not performed on X at this time, but is deferred.
• When Ti partially commits, <Ti commit> is written to the log
• Finally, the log records are read and used to actually execute
the previously deferred writes.
Deferred Database Modification
• During recovery after a crash, a transaction needs to be redone if
and only if both <Ti start> and<Ti commit> are there in the log.
• Redoing a transaction Ti ( redoTi) sets the value of all data items
updated by the transaction to the new values.
• Crashes can occur while
• the transaction is executing the original updates, or
• while recovery action is being taken
• example transactions T0 and T1 (T0 executes before T1):
T0: read (A) T1 : read (C)
A: - A - 50 C:- C- 100
Write (A) write (C)
read (B)
B:- B + 50
write (B)
Deferred Database Modification
• Below we show the log as it appears at three instances of time.

• If log on stable storage at time of crash is as in case:

(a) No redo actions need to be taken
(b) redo(T0) must be performed since <T0 commit> is present
(c) redo(T0) must be performed followed by redo(T1) since
<T0 commit> and <Ti commit> are present
 Immediate Database
Modification
• The immediate database modification scheme allows database updates
of an uncommitted transaction to be made as the writes are issued
• since undoing may be needed, update logs must have both old value and new
value
• Update log record must be written before database item is written
• We assume that the log record is output directly to stable storage
• Can be extended to postpone log record output, so long as prior to execution
of an output(B) operation for a data block B, all log records corresponding to
items B must be flushed to stable storage
• Output of updated blocks can take place at any time before or after
transaction commit
• Order in which blocks are output can be different from the order in which
they are written.
 Immediate Database Modification Example

Log Write Output

<T0 start>
<T0, A, 1000, 950>
To, B, 2000, 2050
A = 950
B = 2050
<T0 commit>
<T1 start> x1
<T1, C, 700, 600>
C = 600
BB, BC
<T1 commit>
BA
• Note: BX denotes block containing X.
Immediate Database Modification
• Recovery procedure has two operations instead of one:
• undo(Ti) restores the value of all data items updated by Ti to their
old values, going backwards from the last log record for Ti
• redo(Ti) sets the value of all data items updated by Ti to the new
values, going forward from the first log record for Ti
• Both operations must be idempotent(A.A=A)
• That is, even if the operation is executed multiple times the effect is
the same as if it is executed once
• Needed since operations may get re-executed during recovery
• When recovering after failure:
• Transaction Ti needs to be undone if the log contains the record
<Ti start>, but does not contain the record <Ti commit>.
• Transaction Ti needs to be redone if the log contains both the
record <Ti start> and the record <Ti commit>.
• Undo operations are performed first, then redo operations.
Immediate DB Modification Recovery Example
Below we show the log as it appears at three instances of time.

Recovery actions in each case above are:

(a) undo (T0): B is restored to 2000 and A to 1000.
(b) undo (T1) and redo (T0): C is restored to 700, and then A and B are
set to 950 and 2050 respectively.
(c) redo (T0) and redo (T1): A and B are set to 950 and 2050
respectively. Then C is set to 600
 Checkpoints
• Problems in recovery procedure as discussed earlier :
1. searching the entire log is time-consuming
2. we might unnecessarily redo transactions which have already
3. output their updates to the database.
• Streamline recovery procedure by periodically performing
checkpointing
1. Output all log records currently residing in main memory onto stable
storage.
2. Output all modified buffer blocks to the disk.
3. Write a log record < checkpoint> onto stable storage.
 Checkpoints (Cont.)
• During recovery we need to consider only the most recent
transaction Ti that started before the checkpoint, and transactions
that started after Ti.
1. Scan backwards from end of log to find the most recent <checkpoint>
record
2. Continue scanning backwards till a record <Ti start> is found.
3. Need only consider the part of log following above start record.
Earlier part of log can be ignored during recovery, and can be erased
whenever desired.
4. For all transactions (starting from Ti or later) with no <Ti commit>,
execute undo(Ti). (Done only in case of immediate modification.)
5. Scanning forward in the log, for all transactions starting from Ti or
later with a <Ti commit>, execute redo(Ti).
Example of Checkpoints
Tc Tf
T1
T2
T3
T4

checkpoint system failure

• T1 can be ignored (updates already output to disk due to checkpoint)

• T2 and T3 redone.
• T4 undone
Failure with Loss of Nonvolatile Storage
• So far we assumed no loss of non-volatile storage
• Technique similar to checkpointing used to deal with loss of non-volatile
storage
• Periodically dump the entire content of the database to stable storage
• No transaction may be active during the dump procedure; a procedure
similar to checkpointing must take place
• Output all log records currently residing in main memory onto
stable storage.
• Output all buffer blocks onto the disk.
• Copy the contents of the database to stable storage.
• Output a record <dump> to log on stable storage.