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
 Concurrency Control
 Lock-Based Protocols
 Timestamp-Based Protocols
 Validation-Based Protocols
 Multiple Granularity
 Multiversion Schemes
 Insert and Delete Operations
 Concurrency in Index Structures

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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
 Phase 2: Shrinking Phase
 transaction may release locks
 transaction may not obtain locks
 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).

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 (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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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)
– Second Phase:
 can release a lock-S
 can release a lock-X
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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
Granted
or granted requests of the
Waiting transaction are deleted
 lock manager may keep a list
of locks held by each
transaction, to implement
this efficiently

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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
T i.
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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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 two-phase 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example of Granularity Hierarchy

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

 database
 area
 file
 record
Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Compatibility Matrix with
Intention Lock Modes
 The compatibility matrix for all lock modes is:

IS IX S S IX X
IS     

IX     

S     

S IX     

X     

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Multiple Granularity Locking
Scheme
 Transaction Ti can lock a node Q, using the following rules:
1. The lock compatibility matrix must be observed.
2. The root of the tree must be locked first, and may be
locked in any mode.
3. 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).
6. 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deadlock Handling
 Consider the following two transactions:
T1: write (X) T2: write(Y)
write(Y) write(X)
 Schedule with deadlock

T1 T2

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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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).

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deadlock Detection (Cont.)

Wait-for graph without a cycle Wait-for graph with a cycle

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Other Approaches to Concurrency
Control

Database System Concepts 5th Ed.

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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.32 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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)).

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.33 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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).

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.34 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Use of the Protocol
A partial schedule for several data items for transactions with
timestamps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5
read(X)
read(Y)
read(Y)
write(Y)
write(Z)
read(Z)
read(X)
abort
read(X)
write(Z)
abort
write(Y)
write(Z)

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.35 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Correctness of Timestamp-Ordering
Protocol

 The timestamp-ordering protocol guarantees serializability

since all the arcs in the precedence graph are of the form:

transaction transaction
with smaller with larger
timestamp 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.36 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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
Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.37 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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
conflict-serializable.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.38 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.39 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.41 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule Produced by Validation
 Example of schedule produced using validation

T14 T15
read(B)
read(B)
B:= B-50
read(A)
A:= A+50
read(A)
(validate)
display (A+B)
(validate)
write (B)
write (A)

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.42 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.43 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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).

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.44 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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. if TS(Ti) < R-timestamp(Qk), then transaction Ti is rolled back.
2. if TS(Ti) = W-timestamp(Qk), the contents of Qk are overwritten
3. 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.45 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.46 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.
 When it wants to write an item
 it obtains X lock on; it then creates a new version of the
item and sets this version's timestamp to .
 When update transaction Ti completes, commit processing
occurs:
 Ti sets timestamp on the versions it has created to ts-
counter + 1
 Ti increments ts-counter by 1
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.47 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 MVCC: Implementation Issues
 Creation of multiple versions increases storage
overhead
 Extra tuples
 Extra space in each tuple for storing version
information
 Versions can, however, be garbage collected
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.48 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.49 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.
 One solution:
 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,
 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.
Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.50 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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 won’t occur
Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.51 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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]
 Cursor stability:
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.52 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.53 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.54 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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.
 Above protocol can cause excessive deadlocks
 Searches coming down the tree deadlock with updates going up
the tree
 Can abort and restart search, without affecting transaction
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.55 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Next-Key Locking
 Index-locking protocol to prevent phantoms required
locking entire leaf
 Can result in poor concurrency if there are many
inserts
 Alternative: for an index lookup
 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
 Ensures that range queries will conflict with
inserts/deletes/updates
 Regardless of which happens first, as long as both
are concurrent

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.56 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.58 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Snapshot Isolation
 A transaction T1 executing with T1 T2 T3
Snapshot Isolation
W(Y := 1)
 takes snapshot of committed
data at start Commit
 always reads/modifies data in Start
its own snapshot R(X)  0
 updates of concurrent R(Y) 1
transactions are not visible to W(X:=2
T1 )
 writes of T1 complete when it W(Z:=3)
commits
Commi
 First-committer-wins rule: t
 Commits only if no other R(Z)  0
concurrent transaction has
already written data that T1 R(Y)  1
Concurrent updates not visible
intends to write. W(X:=3)
Own updates are visible
Not first-committer of X Commit-
Serialization error, T2 is rolled back Req
Abort
Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.59 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Benefits of SI
 Reading is never blocked,
 and also doesn’t 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.60 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.61 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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
 But does occur
 Application developers should be careful about
write skew
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.62 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 SI In Oracle and PostgreSQL
 Warning: SI used when isolation level is set to serializable, by
Oracle and PostgreSQL
 PostgreSQL’s 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. select max(orderno) from orders for update
2. read value into local variable maxorder
3. insert into orders (maxorder+1, …)
Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.63 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.65 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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
Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.66 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 SI Non-Serializability even for Read-Only
Transactions

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.67 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Partial Schedule Under Two-Phase
Locking

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.68 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Incomplete Schedule With a Lock
Conversion

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.69 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Tree-Structured Database Graph

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.70 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Serializable Schedule Under the Tree
Protocol

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.71 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule 3

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.72 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule 4

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.73 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule 5, A Schedule Produced by Using
Validation

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.74 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Compatibility Matrix

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.75 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Nonserializable Schedule with Degree-Two
Consistency

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.76 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 B+-Tree For account File with n = 3.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.77 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Insertion of “Clearview” Into the B+-Tree of
Figure 16.21

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.78 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Lock-Compatibility Matrix

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition 16.79 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan