Concurrency Control

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.1 ©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 - 7th Edition 18.2 ©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.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.3 ©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

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule With Lock Grants
▪ Grants omitted in rest of
chapter
• Assume grant happens
just before the next
instruction following
lock request
▪ This schedule is not
serializable (why?)
▪ A locking protocol is a set
of rules followed by all
transactions while
requesting and releasing
locks.
▪ Locking protocols enforce
serializability by restricting
the set of possible
schedules.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deadlock

▪ 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 - 7th Edition 18.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deadlock (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 - 7th Edition 18.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Two-Phase Locking Protocol

▪ A protocol which ensures conflict-serializable

schedules.
▪ Phase 1: Growing Phase
• Transaction may obtain locks

Locks
• Transaction may not release locks
▪ Phase 2: Shrinking Phase
• Transaction may release locks
Time
• 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 - 7th Edition 18.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Two-Phase Locking Protocol (Cont.)

▪ Two-phase locking does not ensure freedom from deadlocks

▪ Extensions to basic two-phase locking needed to ensure recoverability of freedom
from cascading roll-back
• Strict two-phase locking: a transaction must hold all its exclusive locks till
it commits/aborts.
▪ Ensures recoverability and avoids cascading roll-backs
• Rigorous two-phase locking: a transaction must hold all locks till
commit/abort.
▪ Transactions can be serialized in the order in which they commit.
▪ Most databases implement rigorous two-phase locking, but refer to it as simply
two-phase locking

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Two-Phase Locking Protocol (Cont.)

▪ Two-phase locking is not a necessary

condition for serializability
• There are conflict serializable
schedules that cannot be obtained if
the two-phase locking protocol is
used.
▪ In the absence of extra information (e.g.,
ordering of access to data), two-phase
locking is necessary 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 - 7th Edition 18.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Locking Protocols

▪ Given a locking protocol (such as 2PL)

• A schedule S is legal under a locking protocol if it can be generated by a set
of transactions that follow the protocol
• A protocol ensures serializability if all legal schedules under that protocol
are serializable

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Lock Conversions

▪ Two-phase locking protocol with lock conversions:

– Growing 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)
– Shrinking Phase:
• can release a lock-S
• can release a lock-X
• can convert a lock-X to a lock-S (downgrade)
▪ This protocol ensures serializability

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.12 ©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 - 7th Edition 18.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Automatic Acquisition of Locks (Cont.)

▪ The operation 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 - 7th Edition 18.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Implementation of Locking

▪ A lock manager can be implemented as a separate process

▪ Transactions can send lock and unlock requests as messages
▪ 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 an in-memory data-structure called a lock table to
record granted locks and pending requests

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.15 ©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.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deadlock Handling

▪ 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 (pre-declaration).
• 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 - 7th Edition 18.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 More Deadlock Prevention Strategies

▪ 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 a lock
▪ wound-wait scheme — preemptive
• Older transaction wounds (forces rollback) of younger transaction instead of
waiting for it.
• Younger transactions may wait for older ones.
• Fewer rollbacks than wait-die scheme.
▪ In both schemes, a rolled back transactions is restarted with its original
timestamp.
• Ensures that older transactions have precedence over newer ones, and
starvation is thus avoided.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deadlock prevention (Cont.)

▪ 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.
• Ensures that deadlocks get resolved by timeout if they occur
• Simple to implement
• But may roll back transaction unnecessarily in absence of deadlock
▪ Difficult to determine good value of the timeout interval.
• Starvation is also possible

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deadlock Detection

▪ Wait-for graph
• Vertices: transactions
• Edge from Ti →Tj. : if Ti is waiting for a lock held in conflicting mode byTj
▪ The system is in a deadlock state if and only if the wait-for graph has a cycle.
▪ Invoke a deadlock-detection algorithm periodically to look for cycles.

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

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deadlock Recovery

▪ When deadlock is detected :

• Some transaction will have to rolled back (made a victim) to break deadlock
cycle.
▪ 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.
▪ Partial rollback: Roll back victim transaction only as far as necessary to
release locks that another transaction in cycle is waiting for
▪ Starvation can happen (why?)
• One solution: oldest transaction in the deadlock set is never chosen as victim

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Timestamp Based Concurrency Control

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Timestamp-Based Protocols

▪ Each transaction Ti is issued a timestamp TS(Ti) when it enters the system.

• Each transaction has a unique timestamp
• Newer transactions have timestamps strictly greater than earlier ones
• Timestamp could be based on a logical counter
▪ Real time may not be unique
▪ Can use (wall-clock time, logical counter) to ensure
▪ Timestamp-based protocols manage concurrent execution such that
time-stamp order = serializability order
▪ Several alternative protocols based on timestamps

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Timestamp-Ordering Protocol

The timestamp ordering (TSO) 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.
▪ Imposes rules on read and write operations to ensure that
• Any conflicting operations are executed in timestamp order
• Out of order operations cause transaction rollback

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Timestamp-Based Protocols (Cont.)

▪ 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 - 7th Edition 18.25 ©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 - 7th Edition 18.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example of Schedule Under TSO

▪ Is this schedule valid under TSO?

Assume that initially:
R-TS(A) = W-TS(A) = 0
R-TS(B) = W-TS(B) = 0
Assume TS(T25) = 25 and
TS(T26) = 26

▪ How about this one,

where initially
R-TS(Q)=W-TS(Q)=0

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Another Example Under TSO
A partial schedule for several data items for transactions with
timestamps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, with all R-TS and W-TS = 0 initially

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.28 ©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:

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 - 7th Edition 18.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Recoverability and Cascade Freedom

▪ 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 - 7th Edition 18.30 ©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 - 7th Edition 18.31 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Validation-Based Protocol
▪ Idea: can we use commit time as serialization order?
▪ To do so:
• Postpone writes to end of transaction
• Keep track of data items read/written by transaction
• Validation performed at commit time, detect any out-of-serialization order
reads/writes
▪ Also called as optimistic concurrency control since transaction executes fully in
the hope that all will go well during validation

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.32 ©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.
• We 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.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.33 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Validation-Based Protocol (Cont.)

▪ Each transaction Ti has 3 timestamps

• StartTS(Ti) : the time when Ti started its execution
• ValidationTS(Ti): the time when Ti entered its validation phase
• FinishTS(Ti) : the time when Ti finished its write phase
▪ Validation tests use above timestamps and read/write sets to ensure that
serializability order is determined by validation time
• Thus, TS(Ti) = ValidationTS(Ti)
▪ Validation-based protocol has been found to give greater degree of concurrency
than locking/TSO if probability of conflicts is low.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.34 ©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:
• finishTS(Ti) < startTS(Tj)
• startTS(Tj) < finishTS(Ti) < validationTS(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:
• First condition applies when execution is not concurrent
▪ The writes of Tj do not affect reads of Ti since they occur after Ti has
finished its reads.
• If the second condition holds, execution is concurrent, Tj does not read any
item written by Ti.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.35 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schedule Produced by Validation

▪ Example of schedule produced using validation

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 18.36 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan