Database Management Systems

UNIT V
Transaction Management

By
Prof. Y. A. Dhumale
 Transaction Concept
• Collections of operations that form a single logical unit of
work are called transactions.
• A transaction is a unit of program execution that accesses and
possibly updates various data items.
• The transaction consists of all operations executed between
the begin transaction and end transaction.
• 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)
 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 (transaction management).
• Consistency - Execution of a transaction in isolation preserves the
consistency of the database (application programmer).
• 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 (concurrency control
manager).
• Durability - After a transaction completes successfully, the changes it
has made to the database persist, even if there are system failures
(transaction management).
 Example of Fund Transfer
• 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.
 Example of Fund Transfer (Cont.)
• 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)
• Consistency requirement
– the sum of A and B is unchanged by the execution of the
transaction
– A transaction must see a consistent database.
– During transaction execution the database may be temporarily
inconsistent.
– When the transaction completes successfully the database must
be consistent
 Example of Fund Transfer (Cont.)
• Isolation requirement
if between steps 3 and 6, 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.
 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.
Transaction State (Cont.)

Fig: State diagram of Transaction

 Implementation of Atomicity and Durability
• The recovery-management component of a database system
implements the support for atomicity and durability.
• E.g. the shadow copy scheme:
– The scheme also assumes that the database is simply a file on disk.
– A pointer called db-pointer is maintained on disk; it points to the
current copy of the database.
Implementation of Atomicity and Durability (Cont.)
• In the shadow-copy scheme, a transaction that wants to update the
database first creates a complete copy of the database
– all updates are made on a shadow copy of the database
– In case transaction fails, old consistent copy pointed to by
db_pointer can be used, and the shadow copy can be deleted.

• If the transaction completes, it is commited as follows.

– First, the operating system is asked to make sure that all pages
of the new copy of the database have been written out to disk.
– After that, the database system updates the pointer db-pointer
to point to the new copy of the database.
– The new copy then becomes the current copy of the database
and the old copy of the database is then deleted.
 Advantages and Disadvantages of
Shadow-Copy Scheme
• Advantages
– Handling transaction failures
– Handling system failures
• Disadvantages
– The implementation is extremely inefficient in the context of
large databases, since executing a single transaction requires
copying the entire database.
– The implementation does not allow transactions to execute
concurrently with one another.
 Concurrent Executions
• Multiple transactions are allowed to run concurrently in the
system. Advantages are:
– Improved throughput and resource utilization
• The CPU and the disks in a computer system can operate in
parallel. Thus some involve I/O activity and others involve
CPU activity.
• 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
 Schedules
• 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
 Schedule 1
• Let T1 transfer $50 from A to B, and T2 transfer 10% of the
balance from A to B.
• Initially A=1000 and B=2000
• A serial schedule in which T1 is followed by T2 :

• T1: A = 950 & B = 2050 T2: A = 855 & B = 2145

 Schedule 2
• A serial schedule where T2 is followed by T1

• T1: A = 900 & B = 2100 T2: A = 850 & B = 2150

 Schedule 3
• Let T1 and T2 be the transactions defined previously. The
following concurrent schedule is not a serial schedule,
but it is equivalent to Schedule 1.

In Schedules 1, 2 and 3, the sum A + B is preserved.

 Schedule 4
• The following concurrent schedule does not preserve the value
of (A + B ).
 All Concurrency Problem
• Types of Problems in Concurrency
1) Dirty Read
2) Incorrect Summary
3) Lost Update
4) Unrepeatable read
5) Phantom Read
Dirty Read (Un committed Read/WR
conflict )
T1 T2

R(A)

W(A)

R(A)

W(A)

Commit

R(B)

Failure X
 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
• 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.
 Serializability
T1 T2 T1 T2 T1 T2

R(A) R(A) R(A)

W(A) W(A) R(A)

R(A) R(A) W(A)

W(A) W(A) W(A)

It can not be serializable. Can be serializable ???

Already Serial -
 Conflicting Instructions
• Instructions li and lj of transactions Ti and Tj respectively,
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.
 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
Conflict equivalent
S S’
T1 T2 T1 T2
R(A)
R(A)
W(A)
W(A)
R(B)
R(A)
R(A)
W(A)
W(A)
R(B)

S == S’
 Case
T1 T2

R(A)

W(A)

R(A)

W(A)

R(B)
 Conflict Serializability (Cont.)
• Schedule 3 can be transformed into Schedule 6, a serial
schedule where T2 follows T1, by series of swaps of non-
conflicting instructions.
– Therefore Schedule 3 is conflict serializable.

Schedule 3 Schedule 6
 Conflict Serializability (Cont.)

• Example of a schedule that is not conflict serializable:

Schedule 7
• We are unable to swap instructions in the above
schedule to obtain either the serial schedule <T3, T4 >,
or the serial schedule < T4, T3 >.
 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.
 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.
• But, there are view-serializable schedules that are not conflict
serializable. (Eg: Schedule 9)

• Above schedule is not conflict serializable, since every pair of

consecutive instructions conflicts, and thus no swapping of
instructions is possible.
• Every view serializable schedule that is not conflict serializable
has Blind Writes (Eg: Transactions T4 & T6 performed write(Q)
operations without having performed a read(Q) operation.)
 Other Notions of Serializability
• The schedule below produces same outcome as the serial
schedule < T1, T5 >, yet is not conflict equivalent or view
equivalent to it.

• Determining such equivalence requires analysis of

operations other than read and write.
 Characterizing the Schedules
• When transactions are executing concurrently in an
interleaved fashion , then the order of execution of
transactions is known as Schedule.

• Characterizing the Schedules based on Recovery :

Recoverable schedule
Cascadeless schedule
Strict schedule
 1. Recoverable Schedules
Need to address the effect of transaction failures on
concurrently running transactions.
• Recoverable schedule — if a transaction Tj reads a data item previously
written by a transaction Ti , then the commit operation of Ti appears
before the commit operation of Tj.
• The following schedule (Schedule 10) is not recoverable if T9 commits
immediately after the read(A).Thus T9 commits before T8

• Now Suppose that T8 falis before it commits, we must abort T9 to ensure

transaction atomicity.
• However, T9 has already commited and cannot be aborted. Thus,situation
occurs where it is impossible to recover correctly from the faliure of T8.
Hence, database must ensure that schedules are recoverable.
 Irrecoverable Schedule ?
T1 T2

R(A)

A=A-5

W(A)
S1
R(A)

A=A-2

W(A)

Commit

failure
 Cascading Rollbacks
• Cascading rollback – a single transaction failure leads to a series
of transaction rollbacks. Consider the following schedule 11
where none of the transactions has yet committed
(so the schedule 11 is recoverable)

If T10 fails, T10 , T11 and T12 must also be rolled back.
• Can lead to the undoing of a significant amount of work
 2. Cascadeless Schedules

• It is desirable to restrict the schedules to those where

cascading rollbacks cannot occur. Such schedules are
called cascadeless schedules.
• Cascadeless schedules — cascading rollbacks cannot
occur; 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.
• It is easy to verify that every cascadeless schedule is also
recoverable.
 Non recoverable Schedule
T1 T2

R(A)

A=A-5

W(A)
S1 R(A)

A=A-2

W(A)

Commit

Failure X
 ???
T1 T2

R(A)

R(B)

W(A)
S2 R(A)

Commit

commit
 ???
T1 T2

R(A)

W(A)

commit
S3 R(B)

R(A)

Commit
 ???
T1 T2

R(X)

R(Y)

R(X)
S4 W(X)

commit

Commit
 3. Strict Schedules
• Suppose lets take a scenario of a cascadeless schedule
T1 T2
Read (X)
Read (X)
Write (X)
Write (X)
Commit
Commit

• In this, the Write(x) of the transaction T2 overwrites the

previous value written by T1 , and hence overwrite conflicts
arise . This problem is taken care in Strict Schedule.
• Strict Schedule is a schedule in which a transaction can
neither Read(x) nor Write(x) until the last transaction that
wrote x has committed or aborted.
 Implementation of Isolation
• Schedules must be conflict or view serializable, and
recoverable, for the sake of database consistency, and
preferably cascadeless.
• Example of concurrency control scheme: A transaction
acquires a lock on the entire database before it starts and
releases the lock after it has commited.
• While a transaction holds a lock, no other transaction is
allowed to acquire the lock, and all must therefore wait for
the lock to be released.
• A policy in which only one transaction can execute at a time
generates serial schedules, but provides a poor degree of
concurrency because of waiting for preceding transaction to
finish.
 Implementation of Isolation (Cont.)
• The goal of concurrency-control schemes is to provide a
high degree of concurrency, while ensuring that all
schedules that can be generated are conflict or view
serializable and are cascadeless.
• Concurrency-control schemes have trade-offs between the
amount of concurrency they allow and the amount of
overhead that they incur.
• Some schemes allow only conflict-serializable schedules to
be generated, while others allow view-serializable
schedules that are not conflict-serializable to be generated.
 Transaction Definition in SQL
• Data manipulation language must include a construct for
specifying the set of actions that comprise a transaction.
• In SQL, a transaction begins implicitly.
• A transaction in SQL ends by:
– Commit work commits current transaction and begins a
new one.
– Rollback work causes current transaction to abort.
• The keyword work is optional in both the statements.
 Testing for Serializability
• Consider some schedule of a set of transactions T1, T2, ..., Tn
• Precedence graph of schedule 4— a directed graph consists
of a pair G=(V, E), where V is a set of vertices and E is a set of
edges.
• The set of vertices consists of all the transaction participating
in the schedule.
• If an edge Ti  Tj exists in the precedence graph, then, in any
serial schedule S’ equivalent to S, Ti must appear before Tj.
• We may label the arc by the item that was accessed.
x
• Example:
Schedule 4 is not
y
conflict serializable.
y
 Conflict Serializability
T1 T2 T3

R(X)

R(Y)

R(X)

R(Y)

R(Z)

W(Y)

W(Z)

R(Z)

W(X)

W(Z)
 Test for Conflict Serializability
• A schedule is conflict serializable if and only
if its precedence graph is acyclic.
• If precedence graph is acyclic, the
serializability order can be obtained by a
topological sorting of the graph.
– This is a linear order consistent with the
partial order of the graph.
– For example, the graph of fig (a) has two
acceptable linear orderings shown in fig
(b )and fig (c).
• Thus to test for conflict serializability, we
need to construct the precedence graph and
to invoke a cycle-detection algorithm.
• Cycle-detection algorithms based on DFS,
requires on the order of n2 operation, where
n is the number of vertices in the graph.
 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.
• Thus, almost certainly there exists no efficient algorithm to
test for view serializability.
 View Serializability
T1 T2 T3
T1 T2 T3
R(A)
R(A)
W(A)
W(A)
W(A)
W(A)
W(A)

W(A)