Chapter 14: Transactions

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Outline
 Transaction Concept
 Transaction State
 Concurrent Executions
 Serializability
 Recoverability
 Implementation of Isolation
 Transaction Definition in SQL
 Testing for Serializability.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Transaction Concept
 A transaction is a unit of program execution that
accesses and possibly updates various data items.
 E.g., 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)
 Two main issues to deal with:
 Failures of various kinds, such as hardware
failures and system crashes
 Concurrent execution of multiple transactions.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Required Properties of a
Transaction
 Consider a 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)
 Atomicity requirement
 If the transaction fails after step 3 and before step 6, money
will be “lost” leading to an inconsistent database state
 Failure could be due to software or hardware
 The system should ensure that updates of a partially
executed transaction are not reflected in the database
 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 even if there are software or hardware failures.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Required Properties of a Transaction
(Cont.)

 Consistency requirement in above example:

 The sum of A and B is unchanged by the execution of
the transaction.
 In general, consistency requirements include
 Explicitly specified integrity constraints such as
primary keys and foreign keys
 Implicit integrity constraints
– e.g., sum of balances of all accounts, minus sum
of loan amounts must equal value of cash-in-hand
 A transaction, when starting to execute, must see a
consistent database.
 During transaction execution the database may be
temporarily inconsistent.
 When the transaction completes successfully the database
must be consistent
 Erroneous transaction logic can lead to inconsistency.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Required Properties of a Transaction
(Cont.)
 Isolation requirement — if between steps 3 and 6 (of the fund
transfer transaction) , another transaction T2 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).

T1 T2
1. read(A)
2. A := A – 50
3. write(A)
read(A), read(B), print(A+B)
4. read(B)
5. B := B + 50
6. write(B
 Isolation can be ensured trivially by running transactions
serially
 That is, one after the other.
 However, executing multiple transactions concurrently has
significant benefits, as we will see later.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 ACID Properties
A transaction is a unit of program execution that accesses and
possibly updates various data items. To preserve the integrity
of data the database system must ensure:
 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 Ti and Tj, it
appears to Ti that either Tj, finished execution before Ti
started, or Tj started execution after Ti finished.
 Durability. After a transaction completes successfully,
the changes it has made to the database persist, even if
there are system failures.14.7
Database System Concepts - 6 Edition
th
©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

 can be done only if no internal logical error

 Kill the transaction

 Committed – after successful completion.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Transaction State (Cont.)

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Concurrent Executions
 Multiple transactions are allowed to run concurrently in the
system. Advantages are:

 Increased processor and disk utilization, leading to better

transaction throughput

 E.g. 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

 That is, to control the interaction among the concurrent

transactions in order to prevent them from destroying the
consistency of the database

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedules
 Schedule – a sequences of instructions that specify 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.

 A transaction that successfully completes its execution will have

a commit instructions as the last statement

 By default transaction assumed to execute commit instruction

as its last step

 A transaction that fails to successfully complete its execution will

have an abort instruction as the last statement

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule 1
 Let T1 transfer $50 from A to B, and T2 transfer 10% of the balance
from A to B.
 An example of a serial schedule in which T1 is followed by T2 :

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule 2
 A serial schedule in which T2 is followed by T1 :

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule 3
 Let T1 and T2 be the transactions defined previously . The
following schedule is not a serial schedule, but it is
equivalent to Schedule 1.

Note -- In schedules 1, 2 and 3, the sum “A + B” is preserved .

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule 4
 The following concurrent schedule does not preserve the sum of “ A + B”

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Simplified view of transactions

 We ignore operations other than read and write

instructions

 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.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Conflicting Instructions
 Let li and lj be two Instructions of transactions Ti and Tj

respectively. Instructions li and lj conflict if and only if there

exists some item Q accessed by both li and lj, and at least one
of these instructions wrote Q.

1. li = read(Q), lj = read(Q). li and lj don’t conflict.

2. li = read(Q), lj = write(Q). They conflict.

3. li = write(Q), lj = read(Q). They conflict

4. li = write(Q), lj = write(Q). They conflict

 Intuitively, a conflict between li and lj forces a (logical) temporal

order between them.

 If li and lj 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.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Conflict Serializability (Cont.)
 Schedule 3 can be transformed into Schedule 6 -- a serial
schedule where T2 follows T1, by a series of swaps of non-
conflicting instructions. Therefore, Schedule 6 is conflict
serializable.

Schedule 3 Schedule 6

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Conflict Serializability (Cont.)
 Example of a schedule that is not conflict serializable:

 We are unable to swap instructions in the above

schedule to obtain either the serial schedule < T3, T4 >, or

the serial schedule < T4, T3 >.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Precedence Graph
 Consider some schedule of a set of transactions
T1, T2, ..., Tn
 Precedence graph — a direct graph where the
vertices are the transactions (names).
 We draw an arc from Ti to Tj if the two
transaction conflict, and Ti accessed the data
item on which the conflict arose earlier.
 We may label the arc by the item that was
accessed.
 Example
A

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Testing for Conflict Serializability
 A schedule is conflict serializable if and only if
its precedence graph is acyclic.

 Cycle-detection algorithms exist which take

order n2 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.
 That is, a linear order consistent with the
partial order of the graph.

 For example, a serializability order for the

schedule (a) would be one of either (b) or (c)

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Recoverable Schedules

 Recoverable schedule — if a transaction Tj reads a data item

previously written by a transaction Ti , then the commit

operation of Ti must appear before the commit operation of Tj.

 The following schedule is not recoverable if T9 commits

immediately after the read(A) operation.

 If T8 should abort, T9 would have read (and possibly shown to

the user) an inconsistent database state. Hence, database
must ensure that schedules are recoverable.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Cascading Rollbacks
 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.

 If T10 fails, T11 and T12 must also be rolled back.

 Can lead to the undoing of a significant amount of
work

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Cascadeless Schedules

 Cascadeless schedules — for each pair of

transactions Ti and Tj such that Tj reads a data
item previously written by Ti, the commit operation
of Ti appears before the read operation of Tj.
 Every cascadeless schedule is also recoverable
 It is desirable to restrict the schedules to those
that are cascadeless
 Example of a schedule that is NOT cascadeless.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Other Notions of Serializability

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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,
for each data item Q,

1. If in schedule S, transaction Ti reads the initial value of Q, then

in schedule S’ also transaction Ti must read the initial value of

Q.

2. If in schedule S transaction Ti executes read(Q), and that value

was produced by transaction Tj (if any), then in schedule S’ also

transaction Ti must read the value of Q that was produced by

the same write(Q) operation of transaction Tj .

3. The transaction (if any) that performs the final write(Q)

operation in schedule S must also perform the final write(Q)
operation in schedule S’.

 As can be seen, view equivalence is also based purely on reads and

writes alone.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 View Serializability (Cont.)
 A schedule S is view serializable if it is view equivalent to
a serial schedule.
 Every conflict serializable schedule is also view
serializable.
 Below is a schedule which is view-serializable but not
conflict serializable.

 What serial schedule is above equivalent to?

 Every view serializable schedule that is not conflict
serializable has blind writes.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Test for View Serializability

 The precedence graph test for conflict serializability cannot be used

directly to test for view serializability.

 Extension to test for view serializability has cost exponential in

the size of the precedence graph.

 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 extremely unlikely.

 However ,practical algorithms that just check some sufficient

conditions for view serializability can still be used.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition 14.31 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan